Presentation to the 2012 ORGCon at the Univers

1. The Culture Paradox
(or, why Shakespeare is Spanish)
24th March 2012

7. The Cultural Imperative…
• To select, collect, interpret and present
• In highly controlled contexts
• Over a long period
• Creating ‘high-end’ knowledge
• Based on authority & credibility
• To create public trust

9. National Museum’s Mission Statement (Google it)
The Museum's responsibilities are to safeguard and enhance the value of its
pre-eminent assets:
• Its collections
• Its expertise
• Its buildings
Objectives
The Museum's objectives are to spread the benefits of these assets by:
• Maximizing access and inspiration for all users
• Satisfying stakeholders, locally, nationally and internationally
• Effective organization and sound financial management

10. The barriers to openness
• The barrier is not a question of cost
• The barrier is a question of mission & value
• Success in ‘open content’ world is maximising re-use
• Success in ‘culture’ world is maximising engagement on our terms
• The problem is that we share the same mission in word, but not in
meaning
• Economics, copyright & technology are all surmountable issues, but only if
we want them to be

11. A difference of opinion
Cultural organisation Open Content Lobby
Controlled context Open
Authority Open
Recouping investment Taxpayers money
Expertise Open
Quality control Crowdsource
Long-term Open

12. Where next?
• More and more cultural organisations are exploring open as a form of
engagement
• An emerging model based on 80%, 15%, 5%
• BUT it is precisely the high-value cultural items that people want to be
able to repurpose
• £250m of public investment has digitised maybe 7% of collections
• Metadata in the culture sector is not just metadata
• Declining subsidy will only make it worse

14. Thank you!
Professional network & expertise – www.collectionslink.org.uk
Follow Collections Trust - @collectiontrust
Or follow me - @NickPoole1