The value of mass-digitised cultural heritage content in creative contexts

Abstract

How can digitised assets of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums be reused to unlock new value? What are the implications of viewing large-scale cultural heritage data as an economic resource, to build new products and services upon? Drawing upon valuation studies, we reflect on both the theory and practicalities of using mass-digitised heritage content as an economic driver, stressing the need to consider the complexity of commercial-based outcomes within the context of cultural and creative industries. However, we also problematise the act of considering such heritage content as a resource to be exploited for economic growth, in order to inform how we consider, develop, deliver and value mass-digitisation. Our research will be of interest to those wishing to understand a rapidly changing research and innovation landscape, those considering how to engage memory institutions in data-driven activities and those critically evaluating years of mass-digitisation across the heritage sector.

Heritage transformations

“…‘Fairness’, in this context, is understood as the product of documenting inequalities so that they are known and accounted for, while also striving to eliminate them whenever possible. In the context of the recent Covid-19 pandemic, for example, GLAMs have not only offered new forms of digital engagement (ICOMOS 2020; Samaroudi et al, 2020) but also reflected more deeply on the social sustainability of their data practices (Terras et al, 2021). Although these efforts are certainly desirable and commendable, it is, however, important to remember that they do not develop in silos.…”

Digital Heritage, the Possibilities of Information Visualisation through Extended Reality Tools

“…From an economic point of view, the success of an XR application can be compared not only based on the number of users and visitors it reached and interested, or the number of museums and galleries that decided to include the XR application in their program, but also the number of investors who were so impressed by the XR application that they decided to support its further development [49]. XR is a powerful media tool.…”

What do they make us see: a comparative study of cultural bias in online databases of two large museums

“…Both museums were among the earliest adopters of open access policies (Kelly, 2013;Kapsalis, 2016). Both museums approach their collections as data in line with recent literature that shows how large cultural heritage databases are used for research, commercial applications and as an economic resource (Padilla, 2018;Terras et al, 2021). The analysis of data in the survey of GLAM open policy and practice (McCarthy and Wallace, 2022) shows that open access policies for more than 1,000 digital objects are only adopted by about 250 museums across the world, a tiny number of cultural institutions, rather an exception in the world of restricted reuse of cultural heritage data (Kizhner et al, 2019;Valeonti et al, 2020).…”