Closing the Gap – Maximising the Potential of Technological Innovation for the Discovery and Delivery of Art Information

V Conference – ARTIUM, 4 November 2010

Martin Flynn

V&A - Home of National Art Library

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Themes

Technological innovation – some general observations

Art institutional websites

Aggregated websites

Library catalogues

Commercial publishing

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Phases of Implementing New Technology

Adoption

Adaptation

Absorption

Time lag for full understanding

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New Technology in Action – Some Examples

Early printed books

Mobile Phones

TV/Video

Digital Radio

Interactive Digital TV

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Early Printed Books

Hybrid model of print

and painting

Mimicking manuscript

techniques

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Mobile/Cell Phones

Executive status

Landline on the move

Adoption by teenagers unanticipated

Texting a minor feature

Camera, video, music, internet, apps unanticipated

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First Mobile Phone

‘

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Television Recording

Logical combination of equipment but not generally marketed

Separation allows for greater sales through updates

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DAB Radio

Considered to be the future of radio

Large investment by BBC

Failed to achieve quality of FM

Required new player

Didn’t fully anticipate online listening

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HD Radio

Now seen as way forward for

radio broadcasting

Reflects general

developments in media

access

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Interactive Digital TV

Firmly believed that this was the

way forward about ten years

ago

Resistance from users

Remote control lacked the

flexibility of keyboard

Slowness of operation

Institutional Websites – Comparison Between British Museum and V&A

BM has 2 million catalogue entries for online for their print collection

30% of these have one or more image attached i.e. over half a million

images

Achieved through integrating into workflow of all staff

Difficult to find on website as requires user to know organisational

structure and professional terminology

Images not searchable through the image function of search engines

Some poor quality images i.e. text within them is unreadable

Engages with users by welcoming their input

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Sample page from BM

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The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A)

1 million catalogue entries for a range of museum objects online

13% of these have images attached i.e. about 130k images

Dedicated and project staff undertake this work so most staff are not

directly engaged with the full process

Images are searchable through the image function of search engines

Presentation is very attractive

Metadata is extremely variable

No engagement with users – a one way process

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Sample Page from V&A

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Challenges

Duplication of effort and content

No integrated searching of books, museum objects and archives

Poor subject searching

Lack of linking to book catalogues

Invisibility within organisational website

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Aggregated Websites

VADS (Visual Arts Data Service)

Kultur Project – institutional repository

Culture Online

Every Object Tells a Story

24 Hour Museum

Intute

Aggregated Websites

Suncat

Copac

artlibraries.net

WorldCat

OCLC

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VADS

KULTUR

Culture Online

Every Object Tells a Story

24 Hour Museum

intute

V&A Website as a Comparison

SUNCAT

RLUK - COPAC

OCLC - WorldCat

OCLC

72k library members out of 1.2m libraries worldwide

Net scale ambitions

170m records (a third of these added in the last 18 months)

15.5b books in libraries

5k transactions per second in libraries across the world

See the choice as between collective innovation and silo cottage

industry

National Art Library Catalogue

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National Art Library Catalogue

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Catalogue Problems

Contents invisible to search engines

Process of cataloguing is complex

and difficult to master

Users struggle to understand

catalogues

Duplication of effort in catalogue

creation

Doubt about whether the current

model of localised catalogues is

sustainable

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Catalogue Problems

Automated versions of card catalogues

Lack the enhanced features users have come to expect

Printed materials to the exclusion of digital formats

Confusing search methods

Poorly organised results

Search dead-ends

Catalogues are effectively over-engineered

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The Catalogue of the Future

Re-use data available at the point of

selection or automatically generate

this information

Manual data creation should be

reserved for ordering, receiving,

claiming and cataloguing for those

situations in which it is the only

viable approach

Local customization eliminated in

favour of accepting as much

cataloguing copy as possible

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The Catalogue of the Future

Assist the searcher by providing hints and suggestions in a commercially disinterested way

Abandon local catalogues in favour of unified catalogues based on sectoral, national, trans-national or subject parameters

Catalogues should understand the common use of terms and weigh results towards these

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The Catalogue of the Future

It should be possible to refine a search through faceted navigation, filtering your results in multiple ways

Link to LibraryThing to take advantage of their 16 million user generated tags

The fast turnaround and delivery of library materials to the users should be the standard of quality service, not the fullness of catalogue data

Abandon comprehensive LCSH subject analysis in favour of subject keywords

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The Catalogue of the Future

Customised cataloguing effort

should be concentrated on rare

and unique special material

‘More like this’

New book lists

Reviews

Best-match retrieval

No search dead-ends

‘See also’ and ‘see instead’

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The Catalogue of the Future

Relevancy ranking

Subject guides

Items tagged according to their

level e.g. suitable for beginners,

domain experts etc

Summaries/excerpts highly

visible in the catalogue

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The Catalogue of the Future

Links to further information such as Wikipedia, specialist web pages and library resources

Links to full text, abstracts etc

Information on how and where to obtain a copy or facsimile

Journal contents catalogued

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The Catalogue of the Future

The discovery of books, journals, journal articles and digital resources should be federated

Links to citations and reviews

Tables of contents, cover images

and blurbs

Faceted navigation enabling the

filtering of results in multiple ways

Example of Hard Copy/Digitally Published Product

Physical format drawbacks – very

small print, poor paper quality, old-

fashioned notion of who is important

in today’s world

Costs approximately 230 euros

annually for book

Online version also available for a

further 230 euros but you must buy

the book as well!

Publishers veering between panic

and denial

ARLIS UK & Ireland – Art Libraries Society

Arlis UK & Ireland

Operating for 40 years

A model for other similar societies in Scandanavia, Australia, US etc

International status

Employ an administrator

Fee based

Income declining

Operational basis under threat

MLAG – Museum Librarians and Archivists Group

MLAG

Operating for 8 years

No fees

All activity voluntary

Cheap but mainly free courses

Blog rather than website

Share membership with ARLIS but different cultures affect

organisational behaviour

Expanding role and influence