Presentation for the Cultural Policy International 2012 meeting (BCN): historic review on cultural policy for digital heritage in the Netherlands

1. VII International Conference on Cultural Policy Research ICCPR 2012
Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona
July 9th 2012
Dutch Policy for Digitization
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2. Dutch policy for digitization
 Introduction: digitizing heritage collections
 Dutch museums and policy system
 Historic revision of policy and results
 Subsidy schemes and regulations
 Impact on museum institutions
 From vision to action
 Achieving efficiency
 Future challenges
 Conclusions
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3. The Netherlands Minister of
Education,
Culture and
Science
Since 1989, museums are part of Cultural
Heritage department and of the Directorate
Culture and Media managed by the Ministry of State Secretary
Education, Culture and Science (OCW). of Culture
Previously, museums were managed by
Director General Cultural Heritage
-Wellbeing, Health and Culture (1982-1994), Culture and Inspectorate
-Culture, Recreation and Social Work (1965-1982), Media
-Education, Arts and Science (1952-1965).
There is no museum law but there is a Cultural Heritage Arts
Media, Letters
and Libraries
Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (1985).
The Cultural Heritage Inspectorate
ensures its implementation.
Government
Museums Service for National Archive
Cultural Heritage
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4. Type of income source and
average of income out of total
The Netherlands Ticket sales 22%
Local government subsidy 52%
There are 810 museums
(ICOM definition). Sponsoring 12%
Other 21%
Museums can be divided in Source
Percentage
- National museums
Private grant 21%
- Municipal museums
- Local museums and
Provincial subsidy 24%
- Private museums.
National subsidy 51%
Museums are autonomous:
- Staff is not a civil servant 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
- The government owns (part of) the collections
- The government (may) own the building
- The government provides regular subsidy
- Museums can apply for government grants
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5. Policy milestones
The Ministry of Culture publishes a policy on museums every 4 years
(linked to the subsidy period) since late 1980s. Additional thematic policy
paper may also be published .
Other ministries may have an impact on digitization of heritage (Economic Affairs,
Internal Affairs).
1986-1988
Application of IT in 1994
★ 1969 government Electronic
1980 1999 ★ 2007-1014
Subsidy for Superhighway 2009-2011
AMI Digital 2004-2008 Images for
digitization 1988 CATCH Plus
Delta CATCH the Future
Fishing Museum
museum Automation
1977 ★ 1990 ★ 2001-2004
2008-2010
New Delta Plan Digital Delta Plan
1921 2006-2008 Innovation of
Museum 1987-1991
Reorganization Digitization Cultural
Policy PC Museum ★ 1994 2003
and management with a Policy Expression
Metamorfoze eCulture
1921 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
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6. Project, policy and outcome
Automation of From policy AMI advice: Museum Object Registration to
document renew museum; Automation to improve efficiency;
Museum Towards a New Centralized guiding infrastructure; Identified
Information Museum Policy benefits. (1980)
Museum Information Museums adopted computers:
services in
Automation + PC government
1987 = 4%; 1988 = 7%; 1989 = 14%; 1990 = 25%
Museum Project (Internal Affairs) Total SMA grants = 85, total PCMP grants = 124
★ Delta Plan for 1988 Audit National ranking of museum collections: A, B, C, D.
the Preservation Office Report on
Basic registration standard established.
of Cultural state of National
Heritage Collections Registration quality linked to national subsidy.
Institution to Delta Plan subsidy was extended 1995-2000.
Mondriaan manage grants:
1994-present: funding R&D projects (e.g.MusIP).
Foundation Delta Plan,
eCulture 2001 peak: 40% of grants amount to digitization.
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7. Project, policy and outcome
1994 Digital Heritage seen as part of the Dutch
Electronic information society.
6 ministry
superhighway collaboration DEN to guide R&D mixing heritage and science
★
Digital Delta Initiated by Priority: digital access to cultural heritage.
Internal Affairs
Plan (2001-2004) Digital heritage part of the information society.
Response to Advice: ICT to be integrated in production,
eCulture national ICT distribution, presentation, preservation and (re)
agenda (2003) utilization of culture.
2006-2008: Information plan before
Digitizing with Profess. Digital implementation.
a Policy work process
Evaluation to take place later this year.
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8. Project, policy and outcome
★ Images for €154 million.
2007-2014
the Future Emergency preservation of AV.
Development of best practice.
18 projects.
CATCH 2004-2011 R&D heritage and IT collaboration.
★
Emergency preservation of paper
Metamorfoze 1997-now collections.
Development of best practice.
Support to
advisory 1969-now VISDOC, MARDOC, IMC, SIMIN, DEN.
organizations
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9. Operational impact
Impact on museum institutions can be seen in:
• Choice of software > linked to discount arrangements.
• Use of standards > by using the preferred software.
• Object valuation system.
• Preference of application of technology (websites / infrastructure).
• Balance between core activities: collect, preserve, communicate, exhibit,
research.
• Increased professionalism: (digital) registration, information plan (sustainability),
measure of online use (web stats), access, accountability (budget post).
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10. Apparent trends
Identified (recurrent) issues:
• Subsidy to build up the infrastructure has long term effect / long term
benefits. Project base grants can support R&D –but it must be part of
greater vision to add to infrastructure.
• Subsidy to showcase results are important but represent ‘the cherry on
top of the ice cream’.
• Process is not linear. All the learning moments are necessary to
advance.
• Dissemination of knowledge remains an issue: how to avoid
‘reinventing the wheel’?
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11. From vision to action
How can government subsidy increase efficiency?
There are a number of changing variables: including quality and quantity
Changes in: Influence:
(1) Technology (A) Who has access (inside/outside)
(2) Work process (B) What is accessed (partial information)
(people and information)
(C) How to access it (touch screen/iPhone)
(3) Use of technology
(D) What context for access (use/reuse)
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12. From vision to action
How can government subsidy increase efficiency?
Devising the best tools/mechanisms (i.e. grants, subsidy schemes) requires
continuous reinvention to best respond to the changing landscape.
Channeling resources to achieve a goal is one thing; sharing the lessons
learnt is another. Adoption of digital technology depends on knowledge.
And use of resources is not fully understood: not all digital activities are
accounted for, a harmonized reporting methodology is yet to be applied,
museums have different needs (digital divide).
on-line access
documentation Reported level of digitization in
digitization museums (2007)
automation
registration Dutch policy for Digitization 12
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0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

13. From vision to action
Levels of awareness of adopting computers in the work process:
• 1980s: Attention to selection of technology (digital/paper).
• 1990s: Mass adoption of digital environment (registration of collections).
• 2001: Discussion of quality vs. quantity, certain objects favored (2D objects)
• 2007: Adoption of standards, inclusion of digital post in general budget, online visits.
• 2009: Sustainability, born digital and archeological data (3D / 4D).
• 2012: Harmonization of work practice, open data.
Framework to account for born digitals and (re)use still ongoing.
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14. NUMERIC results (2008):
Dutch museums average
yearly expenditure on
digital activities
€ 792,918
or 5% of annual budget
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15. From vision to action
Institutions struggle to balance:
Challenge Dutch policy for Digitization 15
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16. The future and the challenges
Our adoption of digital technologies continues, we are just starting !
Evidence base policy making requires data: new frameworks for data
gathering and analysis are being developed (ex. Enumerate). Institutions are
harmonizing information reporting of activities and resources.
Performance indicators require to develop an elaborated measure of access
(not only clicks and time spent but measure re-use!).
The new measure is use and reuse !
The Dutch government supports digital heritage as part of the information
economy: the new challenge is to support repositioning heritage content in
an open data context.
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17. Conclusions
We have already
invested much in
acquiring, preserving,
researching and
digitizing the objects
(all input).
The greater the use
the greater the benefit
(ROI).
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18. Thank you !
Questions ?
T.Navarrete@uva.nl
The end Dutch policy for Digitization 18
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