Please note that this is an archived event
Museums+Tech 2019: Openness
Friday October 18 2019
Museums+Tech 2019: Openness
The British Library, London
How can museums and other cultural organisations be more open in terms of their collections and processes, is openness always desirable, and what barriers might we have to overcome for truly open digital cultural heritage?
Museums and other cultural organisations have long been encouraged to be more open, in multiple senses of the word. From a technology point of view, this idea often centres on sharing collections data, producing open source software and tools, and developing open standards – all of which could have far-reaching implications for user engagement, future collaborations, and long-term preservation. Looking more broadly, the word ‘openness’ also has more infrastructural implications, as it relates to themes of transparency about decisions and processes, as well as inclusion of a wider visitor community. It’s also important to question this notion of openness – when should organisations be more open, and why might openness not always be desirable?
At our 2019 conference, our speakers explored what openness means to them and organisations they work with, and openly shared their reflections.
Programme
10:00 Chair’s Welcome
10:05 Venue Welcome
10:10 ‘Is the Met open?’ – Loic Tallon
11:00 Session 1: Lightning Talks
Beyond the Limits of Physical Space: Opening up the National Archives through Narrative Podcasting
Hannah Hethmon, H. Hethmon Consulting
User Perception of 3D Digital Copies of Heritage Objects
Kira Zumkley, University College London
Give Away Your Platform: Twitter Takeovers at the Royal Institution
Sarah Dick, Royal Institution of Great Britain
Your Data, Our Data, Their Data
Joanna Salter and Ben Raithby, National Maritime Museum
Opening up the National Gallery’s Collection Information
Joseph Padfield and Rupert Shepherd, The National Gallery, and Rob Tice, Knowledge Integration
The Making African Connections Digital Archive: Open Beyond Open Access
James Baker, University of Sussex
12:15 Session 2: Opening Collections to New Audiences
Cultural Heritage as a Mean of Social Inclusion: Work in Progress in the CultureLabs Project
Luigina Ciolfi, Danilo Giglitto and Eleanor Lockley, Sheffield Hallam University, and Abir Tobji and Katy Ashton, People’s History Museum
Openness, Innovation and the National Gallery
Emma McFarland and Lawrence Chiles, the National Gallery
The Nomad Project
Sophie Dixon, Mnemoscene Ltd and Abira Hussein, All Change
13:15 Lunch and AGM
14:15 Session 3: Open data, Wikimedia, and Reuse
Open by Default: Wikimedia and Open Access at the National Library of Wales
Jason Evans, The National Library of Wales
Wikidata as a Platform for Linked Open Data About Collections
Martin Poulter, University of Oxford
The impact of open – Case studies and Methodologies
James Morley, Freelance
15:15 Break
15:35 Session 4: Openness and Contemporary Issues
Looking for a New Strategic Approach: the Culture is Digital Digitisation Taskforce
Valerie Johnson, The National Archives
Why Isn’t Every Museum Like the Rijksmuseum?
Helen Casey, University of Hertfordshire
Finding the Nuance in Open Access During the Repatriation of Cultural Heritage
Andrea Wallace and Mathilde Pavis, University of Exeter
16:20 Discussion
16:45 Close
