An International Seminar on National Digital Cultural Content Creation StrategiesCHRIS BATT OBE is Director of the Learning and Information Society Team (LIST) of Resource. Team activities cover a wide remit across museums, archives and library domains including Education, Access and Audience Development issues, the use of ICT in delivering services and learning resources and research management.
He originally took up the position as Chief Network Adviser when he joined the Library and Information Commission in August 1999, where he was given responsibility for leading on the implementation of the People's Network. His task is to connect all 4,000+ public libraries to the Information Superhighway by the end of 2002 (where practicable), giving universal public access to the rich information and learning resources that are now being created in Cyberspace.
Until August 1999 he was Director of Leisure Services for the London Borough of Croydon where he had worked for over 20 years. Closely involved in the development of Croydon Clocktower, the award winning cultural centre, his responsibilities as Director of Leisure Services included libraries, museums and heritage, the arts, sport and recreation, parks and open spaces, and tourism.
A familiar figure in the profession, Chris is actively involved with developments at both national and international level. His responsiblitites have included Chair of the Public Libraries Research Group and the Library Association Information Technology Group, Scrutineer for the LA Board of Associateship, Adviser on IT to the Federation of Local Authority Chief Librarians, work as a member of the British Library's Information UK2000 research team, membership of the Advisory Board of the Library Information Technology Centre and of the New Library Task Group on Content Creation. Recently Chris advised the Department of Culture, Media and Sport on the creation of the new Museums, Libraries and Archives Council as a member of the MLAC Design Group.
His present commitments are: Membership of Program Editorial Board, External Examiner for , DILS, Aberystwyth Distance Learning MSc in Information and Library Studies, membershop of the British Library Advisory Committee and Humanities and Social Sciences and the British Council Advisory Committee on Library and Information Services, and Spokesperson for the EU Concerted Action, PubliCA.
He has a special interest in the development of information technology for public use and has written seven books on the subject. He also lectures in the UK and the rest of Europe.
Rosa Botterill is Co-ordinator for the European Museums' Information Institute. Rosa has extensive professional experience in information management and the implementation of standards in a variety of contexts. Her professional career has been developed working in libraries and museums in Brazil, USA and UK.
Rosa has a BA in Librarianship and Documentation from the University of Rio de Janeiro and subsequently attained diplomas in computer studies and scientific documentation. She was awarded a Technical Co-operation Award from the British Council and came to the UK where she obtained her MA in Archives, Library, Information Studies and Education from Loughborough University. She was later awarded a UNESCO/Information Programme scholarship to undertake a programme of studies in Europe on On-line retrieval of information.
Rosa's career began as a librarian in Brazil, followed by a period working as a research librarian at the Medical Sciences Library, Texas A&M University, USA before finally settling in the UK where she has worked as documentation and project manager at Plymouth City Museums and Art Gallery, the National Maritime Museum, and Oxfordshire County Council. Rosa is an active member of ICOM/CIDOC.
Rosa is currently responsible for the Co-ordination of EMII, a consortium of strategic organisations working to strengthen the position of the cultural heritage sector in Europe. EMII is a hosted organisation, with associates in 14 member states and 2 Economic Areas of the European Union. The EMII consortium seeks to interconnect existing national and regional resources across Europe, aiming to deliver unified access to key European information resources in cultural heritage.
The EMII Secretariat currently benefits from sharing resources, technical support and professional expertise from working under the auspices of mda, EMII's UK partner, based in Cambridge, England.
Rosa's present priority is to finalise the negotiation of a new contract with the IST Directorate of the European Commission for the funding of EMII's most recent project initiative: EMII Distributed Content Framework. This aims to establish a working model for the distributed provision of content of multiple types, including film, video, text and images, from multiple sources (including museums, broadcasters, libraries and archives) for the purposes of EC funded research projects. The EMII Distributed Content Framework consortium has eleven partners, including EMII Associates as well as new partners, such as, the British Library, BBC and Adlib Information Systems.
René Bouchard holds a Bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Sherbrooke, as well as a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Ottawa. Mr. Bouchard began his career as a columnist on economic topics for Radio-Canada. He later held various positions with the cultural sector branch of the Government of Canada's Department of Canadian Heritage, where he was primarily responsible for the development of public policies regarding music and French language broadcasting. He subsequently held positions as Director of Copyright Policy and of New Media Content Policy. Mr. Bouchard is currently working for the Department of Canadian Heritage as Director General, New Media Content.
The Government of Canada's Department of Canadian Heritage is responsible for Canadian policies and programs relating to broadcasting, cultural industries, arts, heritage, official languages, Canadian identity, Canadian symbols, exchanges, multiculturalism and sport. Mr. Bouchard's New Media Content team is specifically responsible for the development of public policies and programs that ensure access to diverse Canadian digital cultural content choices on the Internet for all Canadians and world citizens. This includes promoting the development of a competitive and vibrant new media industry in Canada.
The policies and programs developed to date by the Department of Canadian heritage to promote digital cultural content were designed to achieve three main objectives:
The Canadian Digital Cultural Content Initiative (CDCCI), announced on March 22, 2001, is the Department of Canadian Heritage's partnership with private and public institutions and organizations across Canada to bring Canadian culture into the digital age. The CDCCI stimulates the creation and production of Canadian digital cultural content in both English and French, and promotes a significant, identifiable Canadian presence online that reflects Canada's cultural diversity. More information can be obtained at www.pch.gc.ca/cdcci-icccn/.
The Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC), which is part of the CDCCI, links more than 600 Canadian museums to bring Canada's rich and diverse heritage into Canadian homes, schools and places of work through the Internet. The VMC can be accessed at www.virtualmuseum.ca/.
The Department of Canadian Heritage's Multimedia Fund, administered by Telefilm Canada, seeks to accelerate private sector investment in new media content by assisting the creation and distribution of digital cultural content, and by financing sectoral awareness and professional development activities benefitting the Canadian new media industry. Details are available at www.telefilm.gc.ca/en/fin/multi/multi.htm.
In addition, the Prime Minister of Canada and the Minister of Canadian Heritage recently announced, on May 2, 2001, more than $500 million in new funding for Canadian arts and culture. This includes an additional investment of $108 million over three years for the production of Canadian cultural content on the Internet. More information can be obtained at www.pch.gc.ca/tomorrowstartstoday/.
David is one of the Senior Network Advisers within the Learning and Information Society Team (LIST) of Resource.
David studied Archaeology at Durham University, and completed the Museum Studies Course at Leicester in 1985, before becoming an Associate of the Museums Association in 1988.
His first post in a museum was working on a documentation project, completing cards for the archaeology collections of the Museum of Sussex Archaeology. He then worked for Canterbury City Museums, becoming Curator of Human History. While in Canterbury he worked on the displays of the new Canterbury Heritage Museum, and helped commission a new museum store. In 1988 he moved to Oxfordshire Museums Service as Assistant Keeper of Antiquities, taking on responsibility for documentation in the County. He then became Curator of the County Museum and Head of Documentation.
He joined mda in 1992, as Business Manager of mda Services, before becoming Outreach Manager (ICT), giving advice and training to museums in documenting their collections, with a focus on helping small museums as well as working with a number of museums in the UK and abroad. Whilst at mda, he was closely involved in the development of the Aquarelle Project.
In 1998 David joined the Museums & Galleries Commission as New Technology Adviser, before becoming Senior ICT Adviser. He works particularly on ICT in museums, managing the DCMS/Resource IT Challenge Fund, and a range of other projects and strategic developments, such as Culture Online.
Tony Gill is a Program Officer for Member Initiatives at RLG (www.rlg.org/), with a specific responsibility for facilitating collaborative knowledge management activities in the visual arts, museums and cultural heritage arenas. He is extensively involved in the development of RLG Cultural Materials (www.rlg.org/culturalres/), an online service that will provide rich integrated access to materials that document civilization and global culture from the collections of an international Alliance of RLG member institutions. As part of this initiative, RLG has formed a series of advisory groups (www.rlg.org/culturalres/advgroups.html) from within the Alliance membership to help develop standards of best practice for the description and digital representation of diverse heterogeneous cultural materials from a broad range of disciplines and institution types.
Gill came to RLG from the United Kingdom, where he was responsible for managing the development of ADAM, the Art, Design, Architecture & Media Information Gateway (adam.ac.uk/), and for the initial project management of the Visual Arts Data Service (vads.ahds.ac.uk/), part of the UK's Arts & Humanities Data Service. Prior to this, he was Technical Outreach Manager at the Museum Documentation Association (now 'mda' www.mda.org.uk/), where he provided impartial advice on the best use of information technology for museums and galleries in the UK.
He has degrees in Communication in Computing (Middlesex University) and Physics & Philosophy (King's College, London). He is the author of a number publications on the applications of information technology in the arts & humanities, including The MDA Guide to Computers in Museums and Metadata and the World Wide Web (www.getty.edu/research/institute/standards/intrometadata/2_articles/gill/index.html).
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is a strategic advisory committee working on behalf of the funding bodies for higher and further education (HE and FE) in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It also works in partnership with the Research Councils.
The JISC promotes the innovative application and use of information systems and information technology in HE and FE across the UK by providing vision and leadership and funding the network infrastructure, Communications and Information Technology (C&IT) and information services, development projects and high quality materials for education. Its central role ensures that the uptake of new technologies and methods is cost-effective, comprehensive and well focused.
The JISC is concerned with digitisation as an organisation as a method of developing collections for use in learning, teaching and research. In some cases digitisation is the most appropriate course of action for collections development. For example where it is not possible to provide access to suitable material whose digitisation has been funded elsewhere. For example, effort has gone in to the creation of JISC funded image archives over the past five years. (JISC funded images through digitisation and licensing now reach 500,000.) Also effort is being dedicated into acquiring access to time based media resources for the community, through the MAAS, managing agent and advisory service (www.bufvc.ac.uk/maas). It is rare that suitable educational material in this area is already digitised so it is expected that digitisation will be a crucial stage in proving access to this material for the time being. The creating of learning materials is also an important area which may require strategic digitisation effort.
In addition to this the JISC is committed to the notion of leveraging the content available in our community through funding for digitisation if this proves to be an appropriate strategy. An example of this is the museum, archive and teaching collections currently being digitised as part of the JISC/DNER development programmes. (www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/programmes/)
The JISC also provides a technical and collaborative framework through which it can add value to its own digitisation and the activities of others. The key aspects of this framework are:
The following documents are relevant to this area:
Collections Strategy and Policy
www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/collections/strategy.htm
www.jisc.ac.uk/cei/dner_colpol.html
DNER Standards and Guidelines (Standards reference for ongoing digitisation projects)
www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/programmes/guidance/DNERStandards.html
Advice on digital content creation (pointers for projects)
www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/programmes/guidance/digitalcontent.html
Current digitisation projects
www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/programmes/projects/
Digital Preservation
www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/preservation/
Dr Liz Lyon is the Director of UKOLN, based at the University of Bath. UKOLN is a national focus of expertise in digitial information management and its brief covers the cultural heritage, libraries, archives, higher and further education and government sectors. It's role is to provide national policy and advisory services, strategic direction, build innovative demonstrators and models, facilitiate cross-sectoral collaboration and consensus-making, and to carry out cutting-edge research and development activities.
Previously, Liz was Head of Research & Learning Support Systems in Information Services at the University of Surrey, where she was founding Director of the Centre for Learning Developments (CLD) which encompassed new Learning Technologies, Skills Developments and Applied Research & Development. She has led the piloting and implementation of a virtual learning environment at Surrey, the completion of a campus-wide skills development project and has directed research projects in diverse areas such as multimedia digital libraries (PATRON Performing Arts Teaching Resources ONline), digital watermarking of multimedia objects (PatronMark), devolved budgeting, smart cards, and distance learning support (DiLIS).
Although Dr Lyon has worked in various University libraries in the UK, her background was originally in Biological Sciences and she has a doctorate in cellular biochemistry.
Paul holds the post of Interoperability Focus within UKOLN. This post is jointly funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC - www.jisc.ac.uk/) of the United Kingdom's Further and Higher Education Funding Councils, and by Resource, the Government agency responsible for libraries, museums and archives (www.resource.gov.uk/).
Paul's background is in archaeology, where his PhD research examined the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in mapping deposits buried beneath modern cities, concentrating specifically upon the archaeologically rich and varied city of York.
In his current work, Paul is responsible for encouraging and facilitating the development of interoperable solutions across a range of domains, principally museums, libraries, archives, and government. Paul sits on a wide range of committees and working groups related to this area, both internationally (for example, the executive committees of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (www.dublincore.org/) and the Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI - www.cimi.org/) and within the UK.
Previously, Paul worked for the Archaeology Data Service (ADS - ads.ahds.ac.uk/), a service provider of the UK Arts & Humanities Data Service. Here, he was responsible for designing and establishing the catalogue, which now contains content from local and national archaeological agencies across the UK.
John Perkins is Executive Director of the Consortium for the Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI, www.cimi.org). CIMI is a group of the world's most prestigious museums, technology companies, and libraries working to advance museum digital intelligence through standards, research, testbeds, advocacy, training and international collaboration. Current interests are in the area of digital information object management and interchange for museums, metadata harvesting, and distributed searching, mobile computing, and content architecture for Semantic Web applications.
CIMI has had a long-standing and active involvement in building bridges between museums, libraries, and archives in an effort to make cultural heritage information widely available through the use of standards and international collaboration.
As countries around the world invest and develop programmes there may well be value in greater synergy between programmes. CIMI is interested in exploring these possibilities with participants, determining what if any role we might play in an emerging international initiative, and helping to disseminate recommendations and conclusions reached at the meeting.
Joyce Ray is Director of the Office of Library Services at the Institute of Museum and Library Services. She is an archivist by training and before coming to IMLS in 1997 was with the National Archives and Records Administration for 10 years. Before that, she was head of special collections at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She received both her Master's Degree in Library Science and Ph.D. in American history from the University of Texas at Austin.
Event organised by UKOLN's Interoperability Focus, CIMI and Resource. |
|
 |
 |
Web page by
Paul Miller of UKOLN.
Last updated on 16-Jul-2001
Email comments to webmaster@ukoln.ac.uk