Case Study: 4
Cultural Heritage Project (Ireland)
Themes
A portal website that showcases the potential for users to access the cultural history of
Ireland based on the local studies collections of public libraries, local museums and archives.
The establishment of guidelines and standards in relation to digitisation, and making recommendations
for a National Digitisation Strategy
Key words: Ireland, cultural history, National portal
Relation to wider policy agendas
e-inclusion/ social inclusion: widen access
e-learning/ life-long learning: enhanced learning opportunities
e-business: cultural tourism
Demand
The Irish Government's 'Branching Out Report'
(1998) set out a challenging agenda for the department of
the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and library authorities in relation to developing the
library as a centre of culture. The Branching Out Steering Committee set up the Cultural Heritage Panel
to investigate how the cultural history of Ireland could be made accessible. The Cultural Heritage Project
report and website are the result.
Description
- To carry out a programme of pilot digitisation projects in libraries, museums and archives and so
demonstrate the viability of a national digitisation strategy;
- To draw up recommendations for a national digitisation strategy for important library holdings;
- To further the aims of the Information Society agenda by creating and publishing relevant online
content of interest to the general public, providing resources for life-long learning and supporting
social inclusion;
- To establish guidelines and procedures for digitisation projects in the cultural sector in Ireland;
- To establish centres of expertise in digitisation distributed around the country;
- To identify user groups and target audiences to ensure the end product would meet their requirements;
- To identify the most important local studies holdings;
- To involve national and local cultural players;
- To draw up a national profile of digitisation activities, in line with Ireland's commitments under
the (European) Lund Action Plan.
Products/ services
- Digitisation projects in museums, libraries and archives across the country, each building up expertise
in a the digitisation of particular media (i.e. photographs, newspapers, audio-video)
- A survey of local studies holdings, digitisation initiatives in Ireland, and of special collections in
Irish libraries;
- The production of web facilities such as templates and tools for publishing newly-digitised material,
training, support and assistance;
- A portal as a common point of entry to the website, including integrated databases of digital images,
digitisation projects and special collections across the domains;
- Guidelines and best practice material for digitisation projects.
Barriers/constraints
- The difficulty of getting digitisation accepted as a priority part of an institution's policy framework;
- The challenge of getting institutional agreement on selective digitisation for the purpose of the project's
story line as most organisations prefer digitise all source materials;
- The challenge of getting agreement on the contextual narrative;
- At the beginning of the project insufficient recognition was given to the importance of developing web
writing and design skills;
- Copyright was perceived as a barrier by the institutions involved. The project had to establish ways to
overcome this including guidelines and support and encouragement to take practical steps.
Keys to success
- Ensuring a focus on user requirements; and the identification of the needs of different target audiences;
- Providing a central point of access through a portal to ease navigation through smaller sites;
- Establishing central support and training resources to increase the likelihood of success for participants
at a local level;
- Agreeing common guidelines and templates to ease development and support processes;
- Organising cultural Heritage Training days for staff of local institutions (Topics: Internet essentials;
Digitisation life-cycle; Creation of web pages using digitised content; Fundamentals of internet research;
Project management; Report writing; Metadata; Use of the project website and its tools and templates);
- A high level of public interest in local history material online;
The knock-on value of local digitisation projects for cultural tourism
Impact
The Cultural Heritage Project demonstrated that a national digitisation strategy supporting local
digitisation projects, and managed centrally will be a success. Based on the findings in the Cultural
Heritage Project a National digitisation profile was drawn up in line with the Lund Action Plan.
Other areas of impact:
- The ease of access to new material for recreational, educational and research purposes;
- Immigrants, both from within Ireland and abroad are helped to become familiar with the background of
their communities;
- The elderly, restricted in terms of mobility and the condition of original material, have easy access to
digital versions with a magnifying option;
- Much of the material published online is in the public domain and is easy to use for commercial or
creative purposes;
- MLA professionals have a new set of skills and expertise to deploy. This allows new access to be
made available to rare materials, as well as the conservation of materials under threat from excessive handling;
- Digitised objects add value to existing holdings of museums, libraries and archives,
by creating new artefacts and services and by attracting new users. This allows MLAs to be used in new ways;
- It has resulted in a closer cooperation between institutions.
Dissemination of lessons learned
Publication of report
Our Cultural Heritage: A Strategy for Action for Public Libraries
'Resources section' in website www.askaboutireland.ie
Project manager is member of National Representatives Group
which feeds into MINERVA
National launch of project by Minister of the Environment, Heritage and Local Authorities (media coverage)
National and regional familiarisation events aimed at library staff
Domains involved
Museums, libraries, archives
Geographical coverage
Ireland
Standards/Guidelines used
Participation in MINERVA, working group on Metadata
A project team member took part in the Summer Digitisation School for Heritage professionals at the
Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATTI) of the University of Glasgow;
course managers answered queries for several months after the course had finished.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 created by the World wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Partnership
An Chomhairle Leabharlanna (Library Council)
Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government
The Heritage Council
Local Authorities
Technical partner: Pintail Ltd
Funding sources
Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government
with support from the Information Society Fund): 190,500 Euro
The Heritage Council: 60,000 Euro
Lifespan of project
September 2002 - February 2003
Status of project
In September 2003 the Cultural Heritage Project was followed up by Phase Two. The Phase Two project
enhanced the portal website and delivered research and guidelines in the area of digital copyright,
automated indexing of newspapers and three-dimensional imaging. The report Our Cultural Heritage: Building
the Gateway documents this.
The main recommendation of the Phase Two project was that a national digitisation strategy,
aimed at local authorities, should be funded by the national government. In 2004 Phase 1 of the
National Digitisation Strategy was funded; in 2005 it is planned that Phase 2 will be announced as well
as Phase 3 of the Cultural Heritage Project, which will include cooperation with
www.culturenorthernireaand.net.
Relates to
www.librarycouncil.ie
www.environ.ie
www.culturenet.ie
Host Organisation
An Chomhairle Leabharlanna (Library Council)
Organisation type
The Library Council (An Chomhairle Leabharlanna) was founded in 1947 as a government body to advise the
Minister of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in relation to the development of library services
and library cooperation.
The Cultural Heritage Project team consisted of project management personnel, digitisation experts, trainers,
researchers and a technical partner.
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