NETWORK OF EUROPEAN MUSEUM O R G A N I S AT I O N S W W W. N E - M O. O R G 15:32 Seite 1 NEMO Digitisation in European Museums
15:33 Seite 2 The Europeana will form a single, direct and multilingual digital access point to European cultural heritage, which is also preserved by museums and archives. A lot of museums already provide digitised information about European cultural heritage and they are prepared to contribute to the Europeana. To ensure that all European citizens have access to their cultural heritage NEMO will encourage museums to actively take part in the digitisation of heritage objects. Mechtild Kronenberg, Chair of NEMO I. Digitisation: Where Things Stand Once, creating your own website was a challenge. Museums today require a much stronger presence to engage on the internet. Visitors to websites are overwhelmed by data. At the same time, expectations on the part of web visitors are growing more refined. The technology is rapidly evolving. Both the volume and variety of digital stuff from audiovisual materials to complex databases to text and image files are increasing by leaps and bounds. Imagine what the future holds.
15:34 Seite 3 II. NEMO's Stake in Digitisation As an alliance of European museum organisations, NEMO wants the museum on the web and elsewhere to remain central to how culture is defined throughout Europe. To this end, NEMO serves as an information clearinghouse about digitisation. NEMO's role is twofold: It gathers and distributes news about EU digital initiatives affecting museums and it also represents the interests of Europe's museums and their diverse stakeholders, including policymakers and other cultural organisations, such as libraries and archives. Europe's libraries are today well ahead of its museums in utilising digitisation. Archives, too, are making substantial progress. Museums across the continent must join libraries and archives to accelerate the pace of digitisation. If museums fail to act, others stand to reap the benefits. III. Why Digital Collaboration Makes Sense Differences between libraries, archives and museums will largely have to disappear and their different philosophies, functions and techniques integrated in ways that are as yet unclear. Kenneth Hamma, Executive Director, Digital Policy and Initiatives, J. Paul Getty Trust To serve our increasingly internet-aware public, we need an alliance spanning not only other museums but archives and libraries as well. A new wave of Europewide digitisation initiatives are coming together to make sure cultural organisations in Europe build on each other's strengths. The most important initiative is the 'Europeana', Europe's digital library, museum and archive.
15:34 Seite 4 IV. What is the Europeana? The Europeana will become the multilingual access point to Europe's cultural heritage. By 2010, a minimum of six million digital works will be accessible through the Europeana portal. The Europeana will enable web users to search in their mother tongue different collections in Europe's museums, libraries, archives and other cultural organisations. The purpose of the Europeana is to make Europe's cultural treasures easier and more interesting to use online. The example of MICHAEL offers a glimpse of what museums, working closely with other cultural institutions, may achieve. V. Why Library? Cooperation on this scale is new, but not without precedent. Many European museums, libraries and archives are well on their way. See for yourself: www.michael-culture.org www.minervaeurope.org www.theeuropeanlibrary.org www.digitalpreservationeurope.eu www.prestospace.org V
15:34 Seite 5 VI. Why Should My Museum Join? The Europeana web portal will bring together digitised resources from Europe's archives, museums, libraries and audio visual collections. It will make Europe's cultural and scientific heritage much of it housed in European museums easy to use online. You can trace the roots of the Europeana to the European Library Project. With initiatives like Google's Book Search being developed, the Europeana is expanding beyond libraries to embrace all cultural organisations in Europe. To learn more about the Europeana and other European digital initiatives: http://www.europeana.eu http://edlproject.eu http://ec.europa.eu/information_ society/index_en.htm Much more than an attractive way to showcase your museum's collection, the Europeana and other European digital initiatives will provide guidance on difficult topics and challenges, such as how to authenticate and preserve digital material and the many difficult issues around copyright. The challenges of preservation and copyright are leading the European Commission to fund 'centres of digital competence'. These facilities possess the skills and expertise required to enhance the digitisation efforts of museums, archives and libraries. In the past, the strength of a cultural organisation came from its autonomy. Today, a cultural organisation derives its strength by building the strongest possible networks and acquiring expert knowledge through alliances and collaboration. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, Former President, Foundation Prussian Cultural Heritage
15:35 Seite 6 Seamless access for the user, in his (or her) own language, to cultural collections and objects of all types and origin can only be achieved if all organisations museums, archives and libraries collaborate actively. Horst Forster, Director, Digital Content & Cognitive Systems, DG Information Society and Media, EC VII. Still not Convinced? Under the Framework Programme 7 (FP7) of the European Union, more than 200 million Euros are earmarked for 'digital libraries and content' during the first two years of FP7. While the European Commission will not fund basic digitisation, the Europeana will spark new public and private investment. The financial, technical and legal challenges of digitisation require cooperation on a scale previously unknown. The time to form alliances with libraries and archives has arrived. Public funding national as well as EU may one day depend on your museum's involvement in the Europeana. National action plans to digitise are being developed to reflect the new priorities. Resources are scarce. At some point in the future how will you explain your decision to ignore this thoughtful response to digitisation's unique challenges? To ensure your museum is part of Europe's digital future, forge alliances with colleagues in other similar institutions.
15:35 Seite 7 VIII. Moving Forward The Member States must achieve the goals of the Europeana in developing national digital initiatives, tailored to their specific circumstances. Throughout Europe, museums must join libraries and archives in fashioning national cultural portals. What must be accomplished first? What remains undone is what should come naturally to us, and that is to adopt new ways to contextualise information about the objects entrusted to our care. Museum professionals need to develop a carefully selected, agreed-upon list of words and phrases. Expect to hear more about 'indexing terms', 'controlled vocabularies', and the advantages of a remarkably useful and remarkably straightforward computer language called XML. Many of these are new skills for museums. Greater care and coordination will enable the rapid, reliable and, above all, intelligent search of nearly endless streams of information. The chief beneficiary of 'enhanced search capabilities' will be your museum. We will also need to ensure the national portals operate in conjunction with one another. At this stage the care taken to develop and use those 'controlled vocabularies', the agreed-upon lists of words and phrases to describe our web inventories, will yield dividends. Fast forward into the future. You are in the thick of things digital, moving with the times and far more important serving your calling as a museum professional: to preserve and make widely available Europe's diverse cultural heritage.
15:36 Seite 8 What is NEMO? NEMO, the Network of European Museum Organisations, is made up of museum organisations within the countries of the European Union as well as representatives from the countries associated with the EU. NEMO brings together European museums to ensure their place in contributing to the awareness of cultural heritage in Europe. To support this, NEMO advocates for European policies that help museums to fulfil their role as keepers of cultural heritage, supports museums in learning from each other through networking and co-operation and ensures information flows both ways between European institutions and museums. Please visit the website on www.ne-mo.org to find out more about NEMO s activities. NEMO The Network of European Museum Organisations c/o German Museums Association (Deutscher Museumsbund) In der Halde 1 D-14195 Berlin/Germany T: +49-30-841095-17 F: +49-30-841095-19 office@ne-mo.org www.ne-mo.org This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Berlin 2008 text: Keith Allen / design: Thorsten Siegmann / photos: German Museums Association & Thorsten Siegmann What does NEMO do?