share or sharealike – deciding how, when and where to share your digital content

Share and Sharealike – The How and Why of Sharing Collections Online

Nick Poole, CEO, Collections Trust (@NickPoole1)

The presentation…

That became a research project…

That became a book…

“There are many different ways of opening up collections online for access and engagement. Each one costs my museum something.

How do I decide which ones to go with?”

Initial question:

Access ≠ value

Open access ≠ fewer sales

Commercial ≠ profit-making

Content ≠ metadata

‘Digital’ ≠ an audience

Let’s start with:

- Audience

- Culture

- Mission

So what are the options?

The continuum of use…

CONTENT

METADATA

A BIT A LOT

FUN

RESEARCH

LEARNING

DATA MININGCOLLECTIONS

MANAGEMENT

AGGREGATION

OUTREACH

Content-based experiences…

Your own…

3rd party…

Metadata-based promotional/finding tools…

Your own…

3rd party…

• Achieving your cultural mission and/or objectives• Delivering on your public task• Enhancing the status of your museum or gallery• Raising the public profile of the organisation• Establishing new revenue streams• Increased revenue from existing image licensing/commercial activity• Improved balance of commercial revenue against grant-in-aid or other support• Access to new funding streams (such as European funding programmes)• Advocating the importance of collections as a key part of service delivery• Improved case for collections management and/or documentation• Opening up tasks for collaboration and crowdsourcing• Improving the quality and consistency of your collections information

Return on Investment

http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute

Effort: 4

Upside: Exposure through GoogleUser-focussed tools for digital curationPromotes re-use of your existing images

Downsides: Not focused on sending people/value back to youGoogle is a businessOnly takes content around selected themes

Return on Investment: Reputational Levels of usage not known

http://g-cultural-institute.appspot.com/signup

Google Cultural Institute

Effort: 6

Upside: Exposure through GoogleGorgeous gigapixel images

Downsides: Very selective focusGoogle is a businessIt’s a ‘walled garden’Gigapixel images

Return on Investment: Reputational 20m visitors in first 12 months200k user-created ‘collections’

Google Art Project

Effort: 5

Upside: Huge potential audienceFits with the cultural missionPromoting open re-use

Downsides: Huge potential audienceRequires CC0Irrevocable

Return on Investment: CulturalAudience

Wikimedia Commons

Effort: 4

Upside: MoneyExposureEnhanced metadata

Downsides: Very selectiveOut of your handsRetain 25-50% of the licensing fees

Return on Investment: FinancialDepends on the collection500 high-profile works – c. £5k - £12k per annum2000 mid-range works – c. £5k - £30k per annum

Commercial Picture Libraries

Effort: 10

Upside: MoneyPoliticsAccess to images

Downsides: High upfront costsHigh staff/running costs

Return on Investment: OrganisationalPicture library revenue supports further digitisationPicture library activities support other functions

V&A Images revenue for 2008-9 was projected at £350,000 (20k images), of which 62% was estimated to come from commercial image licensing….

Your Own Picture Library

Effort: 7

Upside: Exposure - huge demand for UK contentPolitical/reputational valueAccess to future European fundingAccess to apps, labs, network, expertise

Downsides: Won’t take data directly from your museumYour data is presented alongside everyone else’sYour metadata in their data model

Return on Investment: Audience6m searches on Europeana this year (23m records)Potential access to future EU digitisation funding

Europeana

Effort: 4

Upside: Share it once, deliver it to multiple channelsSimplified process for participating in EuropeanaEasily create collaborative, cross-search projectsApps & widgets

Downsides: Limited direct audienceMapping your data

Return on Investment: Political312,149 searches in 2012Not a public-facing service – primary audiences are museums and academics

Culture Grid

BSI PAS 197 BSI PAS 198

ACCREDITATION BENCHMARKS

WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY (7,600)

COMPLIANCE(23,000)

GUIDANCEPDF/XML/PRINT+ SCHEMA

NEW IDEAS

How you share your collections online is defined by your audience, your culture, your values and your mission.

High-quality images of high-value items, decent SEO and an API will unlock pretty much all of these options

Commercial activity rarely generates profit, but it can deliver income that can be re-invested in opening up the collection.

A very small proportion of your collection is likely to be commercially valuable – be harsh with yourself (or get someone else to be)

Sharing high-quality images for open non-commercial use drives value and new business to commercial image sales.

With an open, standards-compliant, well-documented API (& a SPECTRUM-compliant system), you can make use of metadata-based promotional tools without having to do additional work.

Key messages:

Please help me build on this research:

http://tiny.cc/sharingcollections

Nick PooleChief Executive, Collections Trust

nick@collectionstrust.org.uk

http://www.slideshare.net/nickpoole

twitter @NickPoole1