At UK Museums and the Web I suggested and the floor agreed that we should do something to support museums and other institutions facing cuts. Below is the statement I suggested we authored as a community which institutions can use in any advocacy campaigns they may be mounting.
It needs your input so PLEASE edit/comment/amend by 31st Dec 2010 so we can have the final version ready in January.
“Members of the Museums Computer Group feel strongly that digital cultural heritage must be protected alongside access to the physical provision of cultural heritage. Digital can never be a substitute for experiencing the real thing and we want to protect the organisations which create content and care for these objects.
Access to digital heritage allows for the creation of resources, development of collections and greater exploration of collections by a wider geographical audience.
Technology in cultural heritage institutions is used to share data and information about collections. It provides opportunities for learning outside the classroom on site and remotely. It also facilitates work with hard to reach community groups.
Collections are enriched through:
Better documentation, digitised information and images. Objects and records benefit from digital preservation.
To lose these services would be detrimental to the UK’s cultural heritage sector. Funders must accept responsibility for the wider implications of cutting these budgets for both current and future generations.”
Comments
This is a very important thing to do & therefore important to get right. Here are just a few questions/prompts that might be helpful:
– What is the underlying problem most common to the sector that this is addressing? Is it that digital services/staff are being cut as budgets trimmed, and as quangos/local museums etc are being axed? Is there an assumption that digital will somehow replace closed/reduced services but not enough recognition that this needs staffing (and not reliance on private companies and volunteers to somehow spring into the space and maintain services)? Do we still need to win the key argument that cultural collections/heritage must be sustained with public funding, and ensure that digital is part of that not something that allows cultural services to be virtualised, commercialised and therefore cut?
– Who are the people most likely to be influential on being convinced of the argument? ACE, DCMS, HLF, Local Government, Press? Do we need to ensure that those advocating for the cultural sector to Govt know how to advocate the digital too?
– What are the main channels for such a statement? Or how would it be presented and spread? Is it a manifesto or provocation paper? Is it to ensure that people can use arguments/stats in response to any consultations or in social media?
– What is the killer argument? What would convince you if you had to make huge cuts with difficult choices?
One more question:
– Would the statement have more power if at the end it helped solved the problem Govt faces by suggesting some actions? Maybe suggest three big ideas, things that the digital cultural sector can do together to ensure:
sustainability of local culture in face of ‘localism’ (ie cuts),
preservation of cultural heritage in face of neglect/sell-offs etc and
co-ordinated commissioning of digital culture as ACE takes on MLA?
Very much agree with all of the above.
Though on a more grammatical/editing level, I think the statement needs to have a little less repetition of words such as ‘create/creation’, ‘digital’ and ‘cultural heritage’ as it distracts from the force of the arguement. Alternative synonyms can be used to vary the language and add pace and rhythm to the flow.
It also needs a little more detail adding to some of the very short sentences such as ‘Better documentation, digitised information and images. Objects and records benefit from digital preservation.’ These seem like incomplete thoughts.
A re-think of the line ‘…the classroom on site’ would also benefit – it needs to say one or the other.
Positive solutions would definately pack a punch at the close.
Dear Gemma,
I agree with Bridget that this is a very positive and necessary step. Following the last MCG meeting at the Museum of London, I did the interview with Ed Vaizey at the ICA, and he made a very strong personal commitment to exploring the potential of new technologies in museums. His more recent comments concerning censorship and Broadband demonstrate his real interest in this area. But at the same time, this is a very hands-off Government, and he made the specific point that they are not going to intervene in decision-making at a Local Authority level.
It is not, then, to the likes of Ministers that this message needs to be targeted. Instead, I would suggest that one of the most important things we (as in the MCG community) could achieve is to send a very simple message to all Councillors that putting Collections online (which is the phrase ‘normal’ people seem to use when talking about museums and the Internet) is one of the great success stories of local cultural services. It has enabled outreach to and engagement with C2DE audiences, minority and special interest groups, and children and young people. It is the invisible face of the work of their local museums, but it is tremendously valued by communities and enables them to achieve far greater impact than would otherwise be possible.
I think we need to present this work not in terms of ‘digital heritage’, which can be an offputtingly opaque phrase to most non-specialists, but as the delivery mechanism for the social, economic and cultural value of the museum to the surrounding community.
To me, there are two main channels for getting this message to Councillors:
1. Directly from each individual museum and;
2. Through the members of the Local Government Association
Experience suggests that it can be difficult to get the LGA to engage directly, but the Museums Association’s pamphlet – which was sent directly to Councillors – did help to raise their basic level of awareness about what we do and why you shouldn’t just bin off Collections.
Perhaps the most powerful thing would be for the MCG to write an open letter explaining the value of technology in local museums, to be sent to LGA members and the Local Government Chronicle?