Organizing subject access to cultural heritage in Swedish online museums

Abstract

PurposeThe study aims to paint a representative picture of the current state of search interfaces of Swedish online museum collections, focussing on search functionalities with particular reference to subject searching, as well as the use of controlled vocabularies, with the purpose of identifying which improvements of the search interfaces are needed to ensure high-quality information retrieval for the end user.Design/methodology/approachIn the first step, a set of 21 search interface criteria was identified, based on related research and current standards in the domain of cultural heritage knowledge organization. Secondly, a complete set of Swedish museums that provide online access to their collections was identified, comprising nine cross-search services and 91 individual museums' websites. These 100 websites were each evaluated against the 21 criteria, between 1 July and 31 August 2020.FindingsAlthough many standards and guidelines are in place to ensure quality-controlled subject indexing, which in turn support information retrieval of relevant resources (as individual or full search results), the study shows that they are not broadly implemented, resulting in information retrieval failures for the end user. The study also demonstrates a strong need for the implementation of controlled vocabularies in these museums.Originality/valueThis study is a rare piece of research which examines subject searching in online museums; the 21 search criteria and their use in the analysis of the complete set of online collections of a country represents a considerable and unique contribution to the fields of knowledge organization and information retrieval of cultural heritage. Its particular value lies in showing how the needs of end users, many of which are documented and reflected in international standards and guidelines, should be taken into account in designing search tools for these museums; especially so in subject searching, which is the most complex and yet the most common type of search. Much effort has been invested into digitizing cultural heritage collections, but access to them is hindered by poor search functionality. This study identifies which are the most important aspects to improve.

Hur FAIR är svensk digitiserad kulturarvsdata idag?

“…En positiv utveckling de senaste åren är därför att allt fler minnesinstitutioner tillgängliggör sin samlingsdata på nätet, men det sker fortfarande främst utifrån andra användarbehov än forskningens. 32 Framför allt tillgängliggörs samlingarna via webbsök med ett fåtal förvalda kriterier och resultatet redovisas som träfflistor där informationen i bästa fall kan laddas ned som textfiler, ibland enbart objekt för objekt. Att få sökresultaten som strukturerad data underlättar vidare bearbetning, men för det krävs idag ofta kompetens inom programmering.…”

“…50 Till exempel kan det konstateras att åtminstone två andra museer i skrivande stund använder separata, ej sammanlänkade personposter för Nordiska museets grundare Artur Hazelius. 51 Golub et al (2022) konstaterar att det inte går att använda kontrollerade vokabulärer för att ämnessöka i svenska museisamlingar. 52 Vid första anblick stämmer detta.…”

Expanding the current tacit/explicit knowledge dichotomy encompassing situated and theoretical/normative knowledge: a phenomenological perspective

“…digital archives and papers), being separated from its creator, persisting in the sociocultural context through the time. This perspective permits to identify two types of documents: documents with intellectual content, which include mentefacts (Gnoli, 2018) and cultural heritage documents, such as artefacts, artworks and other objects that have their origin in a specific society in a historical period (Golub et al. , 2021; Latham, 2012).…”

“…From the perspective of documentation science, it is important to distinguish between the document and its content. A document can be any object with a sociocultural meaning, manifested in two primary forms in the space-time realm: Cultural heritage documents are artefacts of ancient cultures and historical periods (Golub et al, 2021;Latham, 2012). In the case of artefacts, their meaning is embedded in their material form.…”

Design, content validity, and inter-observer reliability of the ‘Digitization of Cultural Heritage, Identities, and Education’ (DICHIE) instrument

“…In this line, digital-technological innovations are already relevant for the systemic retrieval of heritage metadata (usually in the form of title and description of a cultural object) from iconographic sources provided by crowdsourcing (Rettig et al, 2021); or for the provision of semantic layers to online historical archiving systems (Goy et al, 2019). However, some levels of activity achieved in different scientific disciplines, such as in crowdsourcing, continue to be heterogeneous, especially in relation to those obtained in fields such as natural sciences or biodiversity (Davies, 2020), and limited with respect to advances linked to subject indexing, or the implementation and lexical control of museum web interfaces (Golub et al, 2022).…”