System Simulation Mono to Multi – Reflections on the Evolution of Digital Cultural Heritage Dr George Mallen System Simulation Ltd [email protected]

System Simulation www.ssl.co.uk

Mono to Multi – Reflections on the Evolution of Digital Cultural Heritage

Dr George Mallen

System Simulation Ltd

[email protected]

SSL - the simple facts

• Emerging from research work on learning and

decision making, founded in 1970 to do contract

research on applications of interactive computing

• Early projects on system modelling, decision

support and educational gaming

• Then visualisation and animation

• Then IR, museums, ePublishing, image libraries and

higher education

Current business

20 people based in Covent Garden, London

Market sectors:

• Cultural heritage

• Higher education

• Image libraries

• Publishing & information services

• Collaborative R&D

Selection of clients and partners

The British Museum, the V&A, the Royal Academy,

London’s Transport Museum, the Courtauld Institute,

JISC, the 24 Hour Museum, SCRAN, Getty Images,

Haymarket Medical, IFIS, MA, BFI, BBC, RTE, EC,

Wellcome Trust …

EU Framework projects – FPs 4, 5 and 6 on cultural

heritage projects


Some recent implementations

The British Museum's Merlin and Compass systems

The V&A's CIS, CSIP (Core Systems Integration Project) and DAM (Digital Asset Management)

Royal Academy

Courtauld Institute

London’s Transport Museum

SOPSE

Croydon Clocktower Museum

24 Hour Museum


Current concerns

Information systems are becoming the main repositories of externalised knowledge and cultural history. This raises loads of questions eg:

What are the processes which have got knowledge from inside our heads to outside?

How will our little market sector in museums react to the opportunity to become online knowledge repositories?

Do we have governance institutions which can use such systems for benefit?


Knowledge Management – a 60000 year odyssey

Showing



Showing

Telling



Showing

Telling

Proving



Showing

Telling

Proving

Simulating



Showing (Internal – in our minds)

Telling

Proving

Simulating



Showing (Internal – in our minds)

Telling

Proving

Simulating (External – in our machines)


Culture as Externalised Knowledge

• Survival after near extinction 70000 years ago largely based on ability to pass on skill and knowledge - “show and tell”

• Transition from hunter gatherer to settled communities demanded agreed or imposed rules and conventions. Set down as laws, ie externalised

• Religions as accepted beliefs with externalised texts and iconographies

• Scientific method as means of building external knowledge base

• Electronic information systems now main repositories for scientific knowledge and cultural history


Museums as guardians and teachers of cultural history

• Broadly we can see universities becoming the creators of new knowledge (high end knowledge markets), and industry/commerce becoming the creators of new technologies

• Will museums then become the guardians of history with a key educating/mediation role advising governance, policy formation and decision?

• The big question – is there a role for cultural history in tempering the application of knowledge and technology?


Information Systems and the Democratisation of Culture

• Information systems as repositories

• New communication technologies as means for enlarging social groups, communities of interest and constituencies

• Scientific knowledge warning of dangers – ecological, geological, economic, extraterrestrial

• Issues of governance and decision


Multimedia Knowledge Management - Challenges and Opportunities for Industry/Academia Partnership

The technology challenge - MMKM as step towards Automatic Knowledge Generation

The opportunity – to present cultural history as data for interpretation by AKG systems


System Simulation

George Mallen

[email protected]

Documents

System Simulation Mono to Multi – Reflections on the Evolution of Digital Cultural Heritage Dr George Mallen System Simulation Ltd [email protected]