Opening the cultural

archives
Richard Leeming
External Relationship Manager
Research and Education Space.

licensed under CC0

If you believe in publicly-funded arts and culture as

I passionately do, then you must also believe in equality
of access, attracting all, and welcoming all.
Rt Hon David Cameron MP

The Value of Culture #1

Intrinsic/Social

The Value of Culture #2

5.4bn -> 26bn

to enjoy a seamless experience online,

and have the chance to access
particular collections in depth as
well as search across all collections.

The future

What we will do
We will commission a report on the key issues to be addressed
to make the UK one of the worlds leading countries for
digitised public collections content.
We will ask Historic England to work with local authorities to
enhance and rationalise national and local heritage records
over the next ten years, so that communities and developers
have easy access to historic environment records.

There is a general lack of

concerted policy in this
area
There is a significant
investment gap reported
between the aspiration
either to promote open
access or commercial
reuse and the extent to
which participating
institutions are able to
invest in capacity,
infrastructure and
promotion to realise these
ambitions.

Freezes or real-terms
reductions in budget
allocations to national
museums, archives and
libraries relative to inflation
of between 15-30%
Threatened and actual
cuts to Local Authority
budgets for museums and
museum services, ranging
from 15% to wholesale
withdrawal of investment

online is increasingly the

frontline for our museums
Di Lees, Director-General of
the Imperial War Museum

symbiotic relationship with a trading company, such as the relationship between the V&A and
V&A Enterprises Ltd, there are very few examples in the UK of fully commercial Accredited
museums that solely provide access to digital content on a charged basis.
The diagram below provides a thumbnail sketch of the current position of the majority of the
museums, archives and libraries that formed the focus of this study:

A small number of NMDC member institutions have taken a strategic decision to provide some or
all of their digital content under an open licence. Where this is the case, it appears largely to be a
strategic decision driven by the Director of Senior Manager based on compatibility with the public

Grain silos along the west side of Ralls By Leaet is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

This le comes from Wellcome Images, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundaJon based in the United Kingdom

Test

Conclusion
1.
2.
3.
4.

5.4bn

Theres a need for strategic leadership

Theres a need for technical leadership esp on standards
Theres a need for economies of scale/shared resources
Theres a need for really cool shiny things

But the government is writing a report we need to make it say the

right thing

26bn

Thank You
http://res.space
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