Background
Key Definitions
2.1 To assist the reader definitions are provided of a number of terms which occur throughout this report.
| Content: | Information, such as biological records, library and archival catalogues, archaeological and architectural records, plans, drawings, or digital images of objects, which will be delivered and used in digital form. |
| Core Data: | A term used to describe basic data, such as catalogues or biological records. |
| Digital: | The representation of data in a discrete form, such as by use of binary coding (‘0s’ and ‘1s’). |
| Digitisation: | The process of creating from an object—for example, a photographic print, manuscript page, or text document—a binary representation that can be manipulated, stored, transmitted, and displayed using electronic technologies such as a computer. |
| Electronic Form: | Information stored in digital form which can be manipulated by a computer. |
| Internet: | A group of networks, worldwide, using a common protocol which enables data to be transmitted seamlessly. The Internet is a network created by the interconnection of individual networks run by academia, government, industry, and private individuals and organisations. |
| Multimedia: | The integration of different kinds of information, including audio (e.g. voice, music), still and moving images, data, text, and graphics, to support its integrated processing and presentation. |
| Network: | An interconnection of devices (e.g. computers) which can pass information between each other. |
| Retroconversion: | Retrospective conversion—the process of converting analogue resources (e.g. catalogues or records) to digital form by representing the information they contain as sequences of characters and numbers (by comparison, see ‘digitisation’, above). The conversion is carried out either by keying the data in electronic form or by using optical character recognition software to convert it. The approach used depends upon the quality of the original material (e.g. legibility, typeface) and the quality of the scan itself. |
| Software Filters: | Programs which automatically select and manipulate in some way (e.g. block access to) information or information resources. |
2.2 The use of the terms ‘libraries’, ‘archives’, and ‘special collections’ includes, for the purposes of this report, only those institutions which contain Britain’s documentary heritage.
Project Team and Steering Committee
2.3 The report has been produced by the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) at the University of Glasgow for the Heritage Lottery Fund. Throughout its preparation the Policy Advisers at the HLF and a Steering Group (see Appendix B.1) drawn from HLF Panel Members and other members of the heritage community considered the key issues and focus of the document. Their guidance helped shape the recommendations and policies it presents.
Consultation and Literature Review
2.4 This report is built on research and consultation. The project began by reviewing published literature (Appendix M) on how heritage organisations and projects use IT and the current research activities likely to have an impact on heritage applications of IT during the next five years. In an effort to build these policy recommendations on an understanding of the needs and views of the heritage community, HATII consulted widely on behalf of the HLF: comments on the brief were requested (see Appendices A and C); a survey was conducted (see Appendices D, F, and G); the brief was distributed on the Internet (online) to heritage mailing lists (Appendix H); and seventy targeted face-to-face interviews (Appendix E) and a number of telephone interviews were carried out. In addition, the study benefited from examining grey literature (e.g. details of projects, needs, and IT strategies) provided by respondents to the request for comments on the brief and the survey document, as well as by the interviewees (Appendix L). Further material was culled from information services available on the Internet (Appendix K).
2.5 Respondents to the brief almost unanimously agreed that the study was timely and addressed the core issues. Respondents, including applicants and potential applicants, all reported they needed more guidance as to which uses of IT were likely to receive support from the HLF. Both successful and unsuccessful applicants reported that they had found it very difficult to prepare documentation about IT projects for the HLF because of a lack of guidelines on the specific kinds and level of detail of information they were expected to include in support of the use of IT. They unanimously agreed that there was a need for a transparent HLF policy on IT funding, especially in the face of the lack of a national IT Policy in the area of cultural and natural heritage.
2.6 The responses to the survey indicated a low level of knowledge about the scope for using IT in the heritage sector. Many museums, for instance, felt that they did not have the expertise to comment in detail on the survey. Some museums, libraries, and archives, which had an IT team, asked their IT experts to respond; respondents to the questionnaire also included a range of specialists from a
number of other sectors—curators, librarians, educationalists, and archivists. Some organisations were only able to complete parts of the questionnaire because in some areas they found it too specialised, but they still wanted to make a contribution to shaping HLF policy where they could. An analysis of the results of the survey is presented in Appendix G. Nearly every organisational response indicated that it saw IT as providing significant benefits to conservation, preservation, and improving access to, and understanding of, the cultural and natural heritage.
2.7 The interviews provided a valuable chance to add depth to our understanding of the issues and to identify and cover topics missed in either the review of the literature or the survey document. Some seventy individuals or groups contributed to these discussions (Appendix E). The recommendations and policy guidelines (¶ 1.4 and Section 13), which were by this stage taking shape, were discussed with the interviewees and received broad approval.