This document discusses the challenges facing museums, libraries, and archives (collecting institutions) in adapting to the digital era. It notes that while the internet has created opportunities through increased access and connectivity, collecting institutions have been slow to change due to their traditional focus on physical collections and infrastructure silos. The key strategic challenges identified are developing a common purpose and shared strategy for the digital future, redefining relationships with users who now seek convenience as online information harvesters, and keeping pace with the rapid speed of innovation and changing user needs and behaviors. The document calls for commitment to a collective digital future approach to help collecting institutions maintain strategic relevance.

1. COLLECTING INSTITUTIONS
IN THE NETWORK SOCIETY
Chris Batt OBE PhD FRSA
Digital Strategist

2. museums, libraries and
archives and 21st century
socio-technical determinism

4. DESTINATIONS
Physical collections in fixed location
s
THE DIGITAL SPACE
Physical differences disappear

5. Not a study about what the future might be like

6. What is the nature of socio-technical determinism?
What is driving change?

7. Today Future
Purpose, strategy, structures,
processes

8. Research: Mission and
Methods
“I want to change the world”

9. How to maintain strategic fit in the
face of dramatic and continuing
socio-technical change?

10. Research Stages
OUTER WORLD
Key trends in digital supply and demand 2000 - 2014
INNER WORLD
Collecting institutions: paradigms, priorities and policies
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS
OUTCOMES AND FUTURE ACTIONS

11. CONVERGENCE
Commonalities across museums, libraries and archives?
READINESS POTENTIAL
Are practitioners prepared for uncertain futures in the digital space?
STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITIES
Common to all collecting institutions?
STRATEGIC CHALLENGES
What barriers to progress? How to deal with them?

12. Multidisciplinary, mixed methods
Hermeneutic phenomenology
Documentary-based research
Balanced scorecard
Three horizons change model
Corpus linguistics
Theory of necessary cause
Open systems transformation model
Grounded theory

13. 1. The Outer World: a
Socio-Technical Revolution

14. The social fabric pre-2000
Shared social expectations
Incremental change
Access demanded travel
Slow diffusion of innovation
Multi-channel society

15. “The Internet has become a vital part of
our lives and our society.”
Dutton, W. and Blank, G. Next Generation Users: The
Internet in Britain. Oxford Internet Institute, 2011.
The Network Society

16. “The average UK citizen spends more time
each day using digital technologies and the
Internet than sleeping…
…like 8 hours and 16 minutes”
OFCOM. Annual Communications Review, 2014
The Network Society

17. In 2002
STREAMING VIDEO was rare, short and choppy.
WIRELESS HOTSPOTS were a novelty.
MOBILE PHONES were used primarily for (gasp) phone calls
A TUMBLER was a kind of drinking glass
A TWEET was a type of birdcall
In 2022
The internet will likely be different from the internet of 2012
Karpf, D. 2012. Social Science Research Methods in Internet Time. Information,
Communication and Society. Vol. 15, No. 5. June, pp639-661.
Endless change

18. Digital innovation
Towards the Network Society
New business models, new markets
Opportunities and risks of innovation
Media channels: transformation and convergence
User needs and behaviours
The reach of the Internet
Patterns of use
The impact on behaviours and expectations
Trends in supply and demand

19. LOSERS WINNERS
Recorded music industry Smartphones, MP3, iTunes,
Spotify
Traditional publishing Ebooks, ejournals, blogging,
streaming news services
Main street Amazon, eBay, Abe Books
Travel Expedia, TripAdvisor
Reference books, Libraries? Wikipedia, Google
Traditional telephony Skype, email
Letter writing Social networking services
Terrestrial TV Netflix, Prime Video
Sector turbulence

20. The knowledge hunter/gatherer becomes
online harvester
Social revolution

21. COMPETITION
Attention
Time
Convenience

22. 37 key issues synthesised from the
evidence
The essence of socio-technical
determinism as
Four Generic Drivers of Change
Refining the evidence

23. The internet as digital common carrier
Single channel
Internet protocol
Convergence
Instant two-way communication
The internet redefines space and time
Global interconnectivity
Internet time is dog time (human time x7)
User impact - multi-tasking, meshing and mashing
Transaction costs are independent of time and distance
The internet possesses its own gravitational forces
Scale
Growth
Impacts on supplier and user
The internet redefines the relationship between
the supplier and the user
Innovation and risk – low entry costs mean innovation with low risks
Science of user engagement
The user can be part of the supply stream
Four generic drivers of change

24. The Inner World of
Collecting Institutions

25. The public sector context
Structure, policy and power
Change and innovation
Is there a generic institutional paradigm?

26. Infrastructure
Top down silos
Control, not collective action
Fragmentation
Highly stable
Policy
Explicit policy patchy especially for collecting institutions
Tacit policy driven by resources and service values
Power
Locally, in the absence of clear national policy practitioners may be able to
influence local priorities and decisions
Nationally, vertical integration and fragmentation place severe limits policy
influence
Institutional paradigm

27. Collecting institutions to 2000
Long, evolutionary histories grounded in building and
caring for collections
Destinations: Monopolistic merit goods
Technical rationality, not strategic thinking
Skills and values defined by the public sector, curation
and preservation
Strong focus on learning/education

28. Pre-2000 organisational ecosystem

29. Strategic change since 2000
Institutional paradigm rules OK
Lack of collective digital strategy or shared policy
frameworks
Industry-friendly innovation, sustaining, not
transforming
Fragmentation continues: +2000 websites, wide choice
of aggregators

30. Organisational ecosystem 2.0

31. SYNTHESIS OF RESEARCH
EVIDENCE AND OUTCOMES

32. Online service offers that…
Are distinctive in form
Maximise public value
Align with changing user needs and
expectations
Maintaining strategic fit

33. CONVERGENCE
Commonalities across museums, libraries and archives?
READINESS POTENTIAL
Are practitioners prepared for uncertain futures in the digital space?
STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITIES
Common to all collecting institutions?
STRATEGIC CHALLENGES
What barriers to progress? How to deal with them?

34. The digital artifact ✔
Convergence
Shared tradition of openness, education
and learning ✔
The Institutional Paradigm ✔✗
Financial famine ✔✗
Govt policy on digital integration ✔

35. To maintain strategic fit there must be a
clear statement of mission
A shared mission statement?
Close to 1000 websites searched
Less than 40% provide public mission statements
25,000 words analysed and categorised
Organisation’s raison d’etre:
Why do we exist?
What is our real purpose?
What are we trying to accomplish?

36. “The purpose of museums, libraries and
archives is to maintain and promote collections
and services to encourage people’s learning
and enjoyment and to develop communities”
Similar stories, different voices

37. Readiness potential
Professional practice
Duty of care for collections ✔
Status quo 2.0 – organisation-friendly innovation ✗
Education and practice are grounded in technical
rationality rather than reflective thinking ✗
Institutional Paradigm
Risks of strategic change ✗
Constraints of vertical integration ✗
Limits on freedom for action ✗
Sustaining existing service propositions ✔✗

38. Comparative analysis
What are the opportunities offered by the
Generic Drivers of Change?
What are the constraints imposed on those
opportunities by the the Institutional Paradigm
Opportunities of the Generic Drivers Constraints of the Institutional Paradigm

39. THESIS
OPPORTUNITIES
ANTITHESIS
CONSTRAINTS
Potential of the Internet to increase social
value of collecting institutions
Institutional Paradigm and lack of strategic
planning
New relationship between supplier and user,
new business models
Importance of the status quo; long
established service patterns
The importance of presence in the digital
space to meet emergent behaviours and build
wider audiences
The value of the institution as physical
destination
Rapid innovation and diffusion The risks of radical change
Implications of strategic change Constraints of structure and resources
Digital channel convergence Organisational fragmentation
Globalisation from gravitational forces Localism and vertical integration
Need for one voice and one message to
promote collective value nationally
Absence of of explicit shared mission across
collecting institutions
2. User relations and the
boundary exchange
3. Speed of innovation
and change
1. Common purpose and shared
strategy in the digital space
The dialectic of change
The key challenges for a collective future

40. 1. The quest for common purpose
• Overcoming fragmentation
• Placing the user at the heart of strategic developments
• Moving beyond the institutional paradigm
• A single voice for a collective digital future
2. The boundary exchange: from hunter/gatherer to
harvester
• Scale, convenience and uniqueness to face off competition
• Confidence about the physical and the virtual
• Learning as leitmotif
STRATEGICCHALLENGES

41. Emergent learning theory

42. 1. The quest for common purpose
• Overcoming fragmentation
• Placing the user at the heart of strategic developments
• Moving beyond the institutional paradigm
• A single voice for a collective digital future
2. The boundary exchange: from hunter/gatherer to
harvester
• Scale, convenience and uniqueness to face off competition
• Confidence about the physical and the virtual
• Learning as leitmotif
3. The speed of innovation and change
• How can collecting institutions maintain strategic fit in the future?
• Balancing the long-term value of collections against
changing behaviours and expectations in digital use.
STRATEGICCHALLENGES

43. Finding the means to create a collective
approach to a successful digital future
for the benefit of all citizens
Do it once, do it right

44. Digital Knowledge Ecology

45. FUTURE ACTIONS

46. Commitment to a shared digital
future by all practitioner groups
Develop a single voice for advocacy
and the power to influence policy
New approaches to strategy development
replacing technical rationality with
reflective thinking
A BLUEPRINT FOR CHANGE:
A Plan for Action
Potential benefits from resolving
the Strategic Challenges

47. A user-friendly route to knowledge ✔
New relationships with individuals and
communities ✔
Agile innovation ✔
Power and influence from strong advocacy ✔
Rethink professional education & practice ✔
Possible medium-term benefits
Redefine the concept of collection for the 21st
century ✔

48. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/S0732-067120160000035020

49. Thanks for listening
cbatt@mac.com
www.digital-futures.org
If not to change the world,
demonstration that the world
of collecting institutions
may need to change radically.