Presented at Cultural Heritage, Creative Tools & Archives, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen (26-27 June 2013) This paper reviews the user tools currently in use by Irish Cultural Heritage organisations. We highlight that key challenges for those providing user tools are associated with issues of preservation and sustainability of digital tools, and argue that for cultural heritage organisations the provision of digital tools is as important as providing access to the digital content stored, harvested and aggregated. This review draws on qualitative interviews carried out by the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) in order to inform requirements specifications, policy statements, user guidelines and best practices.

1. Dr Sharon Webb
Requirements Analyst, Digital Repository of Ireland (An Foras Feasa, NUIM)
Dr Aileen O’Carroll
Policy Manager, Digital Repository of Ireland (IQDA, NUIM)
Conference: Cultural Heritage, Creative Tools & Archives, National Museum of Denmark,
Copenhagen (26-27 June 2013)
Digital heritage tools in Ireland - a
review

2. Objectives of this presentation/paper
Introduction to DRI
DRI Stakeholder engagement and requirements
Cultural heritage tools - a review
Challenges - preservation & sustainability
Conclusion

3. What/Who is DRI?
The Digital Repository of Ireland is an interactive
national trusted digital repository (TDR) for
contemporary and historical, social and cultural
data held by Irish institutions.
It is a four-year exchequer funded project,
comprising of six Irish academic partners - RIA,
NUIM, TCD, NUIG, DIT & NCAD.

4. Current Status
Prototype of repository (HYDRA)
Open Access to Metadata Statement
DRI to mint DOIs
International Report (follows National one)
In progress: Metadata Task Force, IP/copyright
Task Force.

5. DRI Stakeholder Engagement & Requirements
Stakeholder interviews served two purposes -
requirements elicitation and policy development
(understand the domain - the “problem”).
We asked about current practices in (“analogue”
and digital) archiving.
Interviews captured core DRI requirements (from
the content providers perspective) but more
importantly helped foster relationships (and “trust”).

6. Caring for Digital Data - Cultural Institutions

7. Caring for Digital Data - Archives

8. Caring for Digital Data - Universities & Academic

9. Caring for Digital Data - Research Institutes

10. Aileen O’Carroll & Sharon
Webb, Digital Archiving in
Ireland - national survey of the
humanities & social sciences
(2012).
Launched at DRI’s Autumn
Workshop (2012).

11. Content provider’s view point
DRI’s core business requirement - a TDR (& all the
functional requirements that satisfy this).
Content providers want assurances that DRI is
sustainable e.g. can provide sustainable access to
ingested content (long-term preservation).
“Trust” cannot be over-stated (techno-social).

12. Content provider’s view point
Need to reduce barriers to sharing/ingesting data
into DRI.
• Support multiple metadata standards
• Support multiple data types
• Ingest (command line as well as web form)
• Export functionality
• Access controls
Developed “with” the community & not just “for”.

13. But...Content provider’s view point is one perspective...
...we (DRI) and they (CHI) need to engage the
[digital] audiences (...the end user) and reduce
“barriers to engagement”. (Prince, 2013).
Access to data is not enough given significant
increases in user expectations.
We asked about current digital tools supplied, as
well as future tools/developments.

14. Content users (and end user tools).
Interviewees discussed the provision of digital tools
to “reach, converse with, enthuse and promote
[specific] actions among an audience]”. (Prince,
2013).
Digital tools can include “...websites, social media,
email and mobile technologies...” (Prince, 2013).

15. Digital cultural heritage tools
Cultural Institutions are custodians of our digital
cultural heritage
The end-users (the researcher, the net/izen...) are
the (target) digital audience for content reuse - they
are why we “preserve” these objects.
Focused here on “online” tools (not offline).

16. Digital cultural heritage tools
Finding aids were cited as the most
important “tool”
60% also provided additional tools -
annotation software, crowd
sourcing tools, network mapping,
interactive maps, online exhibitions,
interactive guides, educational
tools, various visualisation for query
results, mobile apps...
”
“

17. Digital cultural heritage tools
RTÉ Archives
Irish Museum of Modern Art
National Library of Ireland
National Gallery of Ireland -
user created exhibitions (light
box).
“
”

18. Digital cultural heritage tools - multiple channels
All interviewees were cognisant of the need to
manipulate, and use, multiple digital channels to
optimise user engagement.
For example, National Library of Ireland and Military
Archives use Flickr Commons (among other social
media sites).
Use of multiple channels enrich the collection &
enables the users (citizens, diaspora) to feel part of
the national, historical narrative.

19. Digital cultural heritage tools - multiple devices
Mobile app development (developing mobile
friendly services)
• Augmented reality (Ireland Under Siege)
• Library Catalogues
This provides “content in the right channels for the
audience” - reflecting changes in user habits and
usage patterns (web traffic and device usage).

20. Digital cultural heritage tools - visualisations
Tools mentioned so far focus on reuse &
repurposing of image, text, audio & moving image.
But numerical, geo-spatial & statistical data sets:
• Mapping Interfaces
• Mapping visualisations/tools (AIRO, CCL)
Also 3-D objects, timelines.

21. Digital cultural heritage - sharing cultural data

22. Challenges
Much of these tools consider and deal with
“digitised” material. (Cultural v’s Research
Institutions)
Entering a new phase for digital cultural heritage
material - born digital (& digital only) material -
storage as well as rendering challenges.
Computational, data analysis tools - big data (big
humanities not only big science), pattern matching,
data mining.

23. Challenges
Long-term preservation means sustainable access -
it must consider the form as well as the functionality
of the object.
Need to preserve the tools that make sense of data
sets, digital objects, etc. but also the user
generated content.
These tools become part of our digital cultural
heritage - part of national, historical narrative &
public interaction & engagement.

24. Challenges
Defining the user communities so that tools are
developed to meet an appropriate need, at an
appropriate scale.
Future developments - IKIWISI (I’ll know when I see
it)!
Challenge to DRI - An interactive TDR to satisfy
both the content providers and the content users
(“prod-users”).
Resources - funding & technical.

25. Thank you for your attention.
Any questions, comments....
sharon.webb@nuim.ie
aileen.ocarroll@nuim.ie