Presentation on the Sharing is Caring X conference in Brussels, June 20, 2017 in the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage. Organised by Packed.

1. SHARING IS CARING Brussels – 20/06/2017
Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK IRPA) / PACKED
CONSOLIDATING OPENNESS
Developing Rijksmuseum Research Services
Saskia Scheltjens
Head of Research Services Department
PhotobyRomaine-CC01.0

2. Taco Dibbits, general director
Photo by Saskia Scheltjens - CC0 1.0

3. Consolidation … or … Convergence
Consolidation
1 : the unification of two or more corporations by dissolution of
existing ones and creation of a single new corporation
2 : the process by which a new memory is converted into a form
that is stable and long-lasting
Convergence
1 : the act of converging and especially moving toward union or
uniformity
2 : the merging of distinct technologies, industries, or devices
into a unified whole

4. Facts and Figures
Rijksmuseum Collection
National Museum of Art ánd History
of the Netherlands
Physical Collection
Collection of ~1,200,000 objects
Print collection ~700.000 prints
Current artworks on display 8.526
Famous for its collection of Dutch
Masters of the Golden Age
(Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, …)
http://schatkamer.nai.nl/system/pictures/170/original/Rijks_t2299.jpg?1308227959

5. CHRONOLOGY OF OPENNESS
2007
• Start of new Collection Management department
• Start of Print Room Online, large digitization project
• Registration & digitization of ~ 40.000 images per year
2011
• Opening up of 111.000 images of the collection with
a CC-BY licence & API

7. Lizzy Jongma, former data manager
Photo by Merete Sanderhoff, CC-BY-SA
Hack de Overheid Hackathon 2011, Photo by Breyten Ernsting, CC-BY-SA

8. 2012
• Launch of new website +
collection discovery interface Rijksstudio
-> guiding principles:
o Mobile first
o Tailoring for specific user group (culture snackers)
o Tactile

9. 601.592 art works – 343.017 Rijksstudio’s
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio

10. 2013
• 2013/03/13 Reopening of the Rijksmuseum
• 2013/10/30 Release of (almost) all collection data & high
resolution images with a CC0 licence
2014
• Rijksstudio Awards (annual event to stimulate reuse)
• Intensified co-operation with Europeana (EDM)
• PID service (Handle.Net Registry - HNR)

12. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/api

13. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio-award-2015

14. 2015 - 2016
• COMMIT SealincMedia project ism VU
- Edit-a-thons / public annotation events ism Wikimedia
- Accurator – semantic annotation tool for
nichesourching
- Tests with LOD data & infrastructure, incl. publication
http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/system/files/swj1382.pdf

15. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/vogelen
Photo by Romaine – CC0 1.0 -

16. https://datahub.io/nl/dataset/rijksmuseum
http://accurator.nl

17. http://tools.wmflabs.org/glamtools/baglama2/index.html

18. Landschap met vissers en turfstekende boeren in het laagveen, Hendrik Willem Schweickhardt, 1783
http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.356880 - Rijksmuseum CC0 1.0

19. BUT (1)

20. Issues regarding
Sustainability
Scalability
Infrastructure

21. BUT (2)

23. Silos
Collection is richer than only object collection data

25. RIJKSMUSEUM RESEARCH LIBRARY
National Art Library of the Netherlands
~450.000 volumes of art books, auction catalogues, periodicals
Non-stop acquisition since 1885
Opened up long before the object collection did
Metadata accessible via open API’s since 2008
Uses an Open Database License (ODbL) and CC0 since 2008 -
Runs open source Koha library software since 2011
Founding member OCLC Art Discovery Group Catalogue 2014

27. Photo by Lieke van Deinsen – CC BY
Photo by Lieke van Deinsen – CC BY

28. RIJKSMUSEUM ART DOCUMENTATION
~1 km of documentary data (vertical files) about art objects
Not yet digitized but very important for curators & researchers
Unknown & largely underused
Complicated re copyright
Increasingly hybrid (digital & print)

29. RIJKSMUSEUM RESEARCH DATA
Heterogeneous (digital) research data
From researchers & curators, technical art researchers,
conservationists, restauration departments …..
Formal data policy & research data management in 2017-2018
Planning for an institutional repository

30. A shift in research output and methodologies

31. Panpoeticon Batavûm, hypothetical 3D reconstruction of a wooden cabinet
by Lieke Van Deinsen (Rijksmuseum Fellow) & Timothy De Paepe

32. Paint Sample Database (not yet released)

33. Paint Sample Database (not yet released)

34. Paint Sample Database (not yet released)

35. CHALLENGES
are
OPPORTUNITIES

36. true

37. http://orweblog.oclc.org/
lam-inating-libraries/

38. Responsible for all collection data
New ‘Research Services’ department
• Rijksmuseum Research Library
• Collection Information & Documentation
• Collection IT
• Study & Print Room
• Stacks Research Services

39. Start Research Services (June 1, 2016)
• Centralisaton of different departments & new mission
• ~ 30 FTE (information specialists, IT, …) and counting!
Vacancies for a data wrangler & co-ordinator collection IT
• Focus on interdisciplinary data - & information
management
• Support and develop new research services
• Development of an extended open collection data strategy
• Digitization RS collections
• Infrastructural renewal

40. Olly Gibb
https://twitter.com/ollyog/status/862781895872061441
Portrait of an Old Lady, Possibly Elisabeth Bas, Ferdinand Bol
(attributed to), c. 1640 - c. 1645 - Rijksmuseum CC0 1.0
http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6116

41. Contact information
Let’s talk!
Saskia Scheltjens
s.scheltjens@rijksmuseum.nl
http://www.slideshare.net/saschel/presentations
@saschel
This presentation only uses images with an open licence