A Look Back at the 2015 "Shaping Access! More Responsibility for Cultural Heritage" Conference

For the third time, the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek is one of the event organisers for the "Shaping Access! More Responsibility for Cultural Heritage" Conference, which takes place this year on 5 and 6 November in the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg. Its varied contributions to the conference program show how comprehensive the aspects are that have to be solved for a cultural heritage that is easily accessible over the long-term.

The conference series is a contribution to the discourse on the opportunities and challenges which go along with digitisation for libraries, archives, museums and their relationship to other institutions, initiatives and commercial enterprises. This year, talk centres around future strategies and the question of which approaches for digitisation of and ensuring access to cultural assets must be developed and advanced.

Börries von Notz, Chief Executive Director of the Historische Museen Hamburg and this year's conference host names the central issue in his opening talk. The internet cannot be seen as its own special world, rather it has to be grasped as part of the "normal" world, as a part of everyday life. Unanimity reigns on this topic. Initiatives in the area of digitising cultural heritage and using digital media can not remain temporary projects, rather they need to become permanent tasks in fixed structures at institutions.

In the following, we will discuss the presentation, workshops and discussions that the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek contributed to the programme.

Introduction: The Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek and The German Archives Portal

Frank Frischmuth, Managing Director of Finance, Law, Communication at the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, gives an introduction to "Culture and knowledge online – The network for Germany's cultural heritage". He pursues questions concerning the design, the functionality and the strategy of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek and introduces the new information portal "DDBpro – The Portal for Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Data Partners".

Nadine Seidu from the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg and the new project manager of The German Archives Portal, looks back at a year of project work and speaks about "New ways of accessing archived information with the DDB" – what opportunities and what challenges present themselves when making archived material accessible? And which arise when linking archives portals? What will The German Archives Portal implement in future? Her presentation is also available in podcast form:

The German Archives Portal – New ways of accessing archived information with the DDB by Nadine Seidu

Dealing with Metadata

Francesca Schulze's presentation "Data quality: one factor of success for access to German cultural heritage" is received with great interest. Her presentation takes on fundamental questions on the topic of metadata but quickly makes the point that

"Data quality is not a finished product of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, rather a process that begins with the digitisation and analysis of cultural assets."  

The question of defining data quality is answered quickly from the point of view of the user. Finding what one is looking for. Quickly and reliably. From the point of view of cultural institutions,however, organising the supply of quality metadata is more difficult. Schulze names possible hurdles such as scarcity of resources, documentation of metadata standards that is barely practical and also legal concerns. But will minimum requirements and mandatory fields in standardising metadata help with improving the quality of the data?

Francesca Schulze's presentation is available as a podcast

Creative Commons Licensing: Classifying Free Contents in the Digital Cultural Heritage

The practical workshop "Change your mind! Classifying free contents in the digital cultural heritage" by Ellen Euler in cooperation with Barbara Fischer from Wikimedia Deutschland consists of an introductory portion and a practical portion. The workshop is prefaced by a quotation from the director of the Naturkundemuseum Berlin, Professor Vogel: "Museums are changing from guardians of knowledge to facilitators" – a change in paradigm.

Ellen Euler introduces the topic and issues of copyright law to dive into the topic right away. Following this, groups are formed to discuss the "correct" licensing of cultural objects. The subsequent noise level shows that it's not a simple matter.

Ellen Euler and Barbara Fischer's practical workshop is available as a podcast
 

Coding da Vinci in Hamburg?

On the second day of the conference is the workshop led by Stephan Bartholmei "Coding da Vinci – The 2016 Cultural Data Hackathon". Representatives from cultural institutions in Hamburg as well as from the city itself showed up in droves to consider as a group what a Hanseatic version of the cultural data hackathon could look like. They are looking for an event site, institutions willing to provide data and participants from the developer community using Post Its.

From the Archäologisches Museum and the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum in Bremerhaven to the Kampnagel and the Honigfabrik, the outlook is optimistic concerning offers – many heartfelt thanks to Hamburg for that – so it seems that 2016's Coding da Vinci will have its first regional focus.

Unfortunately, there is no podcast on this exciting workshop, but here we have an Interview about Coding da Vinci with Stephan Bartholmei.

Outlook: A Discussion on the Future of Copyright Law

The Hamburg's Staatsrat der Kulturbehörde Horst Michael Pelikahn recounts that he misread the name of the conference on his invitation at first. Instead of "Shaping access" (“Zugang gestalten”), he read "Shaping future" (“Zukunft gestalten”), but that was fitting for the conference as well. This is the starting point for the talk that Ellen Euler, Deputy Managing Director of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, gave on the future of copyright law. Artists, representatives from the areas of business and culture and lawyers are invited to pursue the question of how to facilitate cultural institutions in displaying their inventories online.

We would like to publish this fascinating talk within the next few weeks, but for now, here's the podcast.

You can hear even more conference input at the Voice Republic podcast!