Enhance Access to Culture & Heritage Collections (CA0049)

Enhance Access to Culture & Heritage Collections Why do this: An increasing proportion of Canadian Culture and Heritage artefacts is available in a digitized format. This opens new opportunities to expand the scope and reach of Canadian museums and the social and economic benefits they deliver to Canadians. Using Linked Open Data approaches, this initiative will link the collections across Canadian museums forming a National Inventory of Cultural and Heritage Artefacts. How will it be done: In 2015-16, the Canadian Heritage Information Network Program (CHIN) partnered with eight art museums across Canada to develop an approach to link the collections of each museum with each other, and to related external resources, based on industry best practices (e.g., Linked Open Data). This work demonstrates the feasibility of using Open Data approaches to link collections across museums and other memory organizations. Building on these results, CHIN will develop and implement a multi-year business strategy to work with the Culture and Heritage community to grow the network of linked collections through the Canadian Culture and Heritage Linked Open Data Cloud.

8. Enhance Access to Culture & Heritage Collections

Commitment Text:

The Government of Canada will expand collaboration with its provincial, territorial, and municipal partners and key stakeholders to develop a searchable National Inventory of Cultural and Heritage Artefacts to improve access across museum collections.

Milestones:

8.1. Develop authorities and standards to guide the consistent implementation of this approach.

8.2. Enhance the ability to search and browse across museum collections.

8.3. Expand the network of museums participating in this initiative and the links to related external resources.

8.4. Host digital collections for museums that currently do not have a digital presence.

Responsible institution: Canadian Heritage

Supporting Institutions(s): N/A

Start date: Not specified

End date: Not specified

Editorial Note: The text of the commitment was abridged for formatting reasons. For full commitment text, visit: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Canada_AP3.pdf.

Context and Objectives

This commitment aims to mitigate geographic limitations on Canadians’ ability to access cultural and heritage artifacts by creating and expanding digital collections. The commitment also seeks to network these collections together to develop a searchable national database of cultural works. The milestones are spelled out with relatively low specificity, failing to mention details such as the target number of museums and works which will ultimately be included in this scheme. This, combined with the fact that the commitment only deals with a very limited subsection of information (culture and heritage collections), places a low ceiling on potential impact.

Completion

The Department of Canadian Heritage has developed a pilot website including 166,762 objects, with a variety of reference points and taxonomic classifications to improve searchability.[Note68: The website is at: http://chin-rcip.canadiana.ca/aclod2/search/artefact.] The work is being carried out in collaboration with eight partner museums: the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the McCord Museum, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Musée des beaux arts de Montréal, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. However, in response to queries by the IRM researcher, the Department of Canadian Heritage said that it expected the network to be expanded to 100 museums by the end of the 2017 fiscal year, though the standard of presentation had been scaled back.[Note69: Responses received via email on 13 October 2017.] While the original plan had been to publish information as Linked Open Data (LOD), resource challenges have led them to adopt a more conventional database format instead.

The government’s self-assessment reports this commitment as behind schedule. However, the vague nature of the milestones, and a lack of clarity in the action plan of what an intended finished product should look like, make it difficult to judge whether it is reasonable to expect the commitment will be completed by June 2018.

Next Steps

While there is value in expanding Canadians’ access to shared cultural heritage, particularly given the vast size of the country, some First Nations stakeholders expressed concern as to whether proper contextualisation is being considered adequately in developing the system.[Note70: Ottawa consultation, 18 September 2017.] Josée Plamondon, a digital librarian, similarly warned that without proper organisation and context, repositories can end up as 'a cemetery for data.'[Note71: Montreal consultation, 20 September 2017.] On the other hand, Camille Callison, an Indigenous Services Librarian at the University of Manitoba, stated cultural preservation was also an important goal underlying this initiative, which speaks to the value of carrying the database forward.[Note72: Interviewed at the Sectoral Commission meeting at the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, 2 October 2017.] In discussing contextualisation and ease of use, Josée Plamondon pointed out that organisation and robust tagging are important facets in determining the value of this initiative, which hinged on whether the database adopts a user centric-approach to data presentation.[Note73: Montreal consultation, 20 September 2017.] The IRM researcher recommends that the government consider these ideas going forward, to the extent they have not already been embedded in the development of this database.

8. Enhance Access to Culture & Heritage Collections

Commitment Text: The Government of Canada will expand collaboration with its provincial, territorial, and municipal partners and key stakeholders to develop a searchable National Inventory of Cultural and Heritage Artefacts to improve access across museum collections.

Milestones:

8.1. Develop authorities and standards to guide the consistent implementation of this approach.

8.2. Enhance the ability to search and browse across museum collections.

8.3. Expand the network of museums participating in this initiative and the links to related external resources.

8.4. Host digital collections for museums that currently do not have a digital presence.

Responsible institution: Canadian Heritage

Supporting institutions: N/A

Start Date: Not specified

End Date: Not specified

Editorial Note: The text of the commitment was abridged for formatting reasons. For full commitment text, visit http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Canada_AP3.pdf.

Commitment Aim

This commitment aimed to mitigate geographic limitations affecting Canadians' ability to access cultural and heritage artefacts by creating and expanding digital collections. The commitment also sought to network these collections together to develop a searchable national database of cultural works. It would do this by:

•Developing authorities and standards related to the preservation and presentation of cultural works;

•Enhancing the ability to search and browse across museum collections;

•Expanding the network of museums participating in this initiative and the links to related external resources; and

•Hosting digital collections for museums that currently do not have a digital presence.

Status

Midterm: Limited

Over the course of the first year of implementation, the Department of Canadian Heritage developed a pilot website. This website included 166,762 objects, with a variety of reference points and classifications to improve searchability (Milestones 8.2 and 8.4).[Note58: The website is at http://chin-rcip.canadiana.ca/aclod2/search/artefact.] The work was carried out in collaboration with eight partner museums: the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the McCord Museum, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.[Note59: Responses received via email on 13 October 2017.] The government also commenced work on improving cataloguing tools. As a result of this endeavour, the government plans to eventually make material available through a Linked Open Data format. However, during the midterm assessment, it reported resource challenges connected with this effort (Milestone 8.1).

End of term: Substantial

The government's self-assessment reports that, over the second year of implementation, the Department of Canadian Heritage built further on its standard setting work. It developed the website Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging. The government launched the website in November 2018, after the end of the implementation period for this action plan.[Note60: See: https://app.pch.gc.ca/sgc-cms/nouvelles-news/anglais-english/?p=10450.] It plans to make available the Linked Open Data (LOD) format in 2020 (Milestone 8.1).[Note61: For more information about this project, see “Nomenclature: A New Online Resource for Museum Catalogers,” Government of Canada, https://app.pch.gc.ca/sgc-cms/nouvelles-news/anglais-english/?p=10425.] This work has included developing new standardised values for Canadian material. The government self-assessment scores Milestone 8.1 as having been completed. However, since the main deliverable has not actually been launched yet, the IRM researcher considers the commitment as having made substantial progress toward achieving its objective. Under Milestone 8.2, the self-assessment notes a Department of Canadian Heritage demonstration project called 150 Years of Canadian Art.[Note62: See “150 Years of Canadian Art: A Linked Open Data Project,” Artefacts Canada, http://chin-rcip.canadiana.ca/aclod/.] It also highlights the development of a prototype for enhanced search functions and continued work toward Linked Open Data models. The self-assessment scores Milestone 8.2 as having been completed. The IRM researcher agrees that milestone has been assessed accurately, though the implementation of these improvements is ongoing.[Note63: The self-assessment is available at https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/9da9faf5-deb1-48db-8f16-91055d942d65.]

In terms of the formal collaborations under this commitment (Milestone 8.3), the number of museums which are formally collaborating in the initiative remains the same as it was at the midterm assessment (eight). However, according to follow-up discussions with the Department of Canadian Heritage, the government has expanded the number of informal collaborators. It has created an advisory committee on the modernisation of Artefacts Canada. That work will be based on an LOD approach. Advisory committee participants include eight museums (Lougheed House Conservation Society, Saskatchewan Western Development Museum, Canadian Museum of History, Musée de la Civilisation, New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame, Canada Science and Technology Museum, Yale Centre for British Art, and the McCord Museum). This milestone has been completed. Under Milestone 8.4, the self-assessment reports that the government launched a redeveloped version of its Artefacts Canada database in March 2018. The new version featured an advanced search function, incorporated in July 2018.[Note64: See “Advanced Search,” Government of Canada, https://app.pch.gc.ca/application/artefacts_hum/re_as.app?lang=en.] However, regard Milestone 8.4, the self-assessment notes that the government needs to conduct additional foundational work to develop tools for harvesting or collecting museum data. Therefore, the IRM researcher considers this milestone to have achieved limited progress, in line with what is reported in the government's self-assessment report.

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Marginal

Canada's geographical size limits access to cultural heritage and artefacts for many citizens. Digitization provides an opportunity to enhance access to Canada's cultural heritage. It does so particularly for Canadians who lack the economic resources to travel to urban centres where such artefacts may be housed. However, the expansion of material online brings additional organisation and accessibility challenges. The standardisation and nomenclature work (Milestone 8.1) constitutes a key building block to facilitating future connections across museums through the Canadian Heritage Information Network. Milestone 8.1 is foundational in particular to consolidating collections into a more accessible format. The 150 Years of Canadian Art demonstration project gives users the ability to view artwork across certain participating collections. However, the tool remains limited in terms of its searchability. According to the Department of Canadian Heritage, the tool's status as a pilot with a limited dataset limits its functionality. The department noted that the incorporation of a Linked Open Data model will substantially boost functionality in the longer term. Nonetheless, at this point, the commitment is assessed as providing a marginal expansion in access to information, though it has the potential to have a more significant impact down the road.

Carried Forward?

This commitment area has not been carried forward to the next action plan. However, a conversation with the Department of Canadian Heritage suggests that the department expects the project to be carried forward nonetheless. First Nation stakeholders interviewed as part of the development of the midterm assessment stressed the value of digitization to cultural preservation goals. These stakeholders also noted that robust tagging and organisation are critical to enhancing accessibility. The IRM researcher recommends that initiatives to expand the digitization of cultural works and enhance their accessibility and consolidated availability across collections be carried forward to completion.