Need for National Heritage a Information and Communications Technology Strategy
4.1 A national strategy for ICT within the heritage sector is vitally needed. It is necessary that the HLF presses DCMS to launch such a development. The lack of a national strategy on the use of ICT in the heritage sector poses a major obstacle to the HLF’s effort to define an ICT Policy. During the consultation phase directors and staff at heritage organisations (e.g. archives, biological recording centres, countryside organisations, libraries, and museums) stressed time and time again the urgent need for a national strategy. Without such a strategy:
- it is unlikely that there will be national or international comparability between digital resources;
- priorities for creation of digital materials will not be coherent and complementary between heritage institutions;
- substantial sums will continue to be spent each year developing and curating digital resources without a clear understanding as to whether this is being done to best advantage or practice; and
- it will be impossible for funding agencies to prioritise the relative merits of different proposals coming forward for support.
4.2 The process of creating a national strategy will involve the examination of issues such as the impact of ICT on conservation and preservation of, and access to, the heritage assets; on education (both conventional and lifelong learning); and on tourism. It would identify core areas of general need and identify standards of best practice. The strategy would view ICT as a mechanism for developing our national heritage resources for maximum public benefit. A national strategy would do at least the following:
- identify the priorities for the use of ICT in the heritage sector in resource creation, infrastructure provision, training, the development of education strategies, and research into the effective use of different technologies;
- enable the creation of a national heritage network, including libraries, museums, archives, biological recording centres, and linked to public networks such as the proposed National Grid for Learning and the Public Library Network;
- establish clear priorities for which heritage resources should be created (or retroconverted) and in which order;
- help to ensure synergy between projects creating digital resources whether these were generated through the creation of new information assets or the retroconversion of non-digital resources;
- identify and encourage the use of technologies, best practices, and standards that will produce consistent and interoperable digital resources (catalogues which support cross-heritage searching);
- identify and purpose ways of resourcing the ICT training needs of workers in, and users of, the heritage sector;
- establish criteria for supporting the development of software, documentation, and other local ICT needs of the heritage sector;
- address the problem of managing the expanding digital record for contemporary users and future generations, whether through distributed data services or some more novel preservation strategies;
- establish clear guidelines on the commercial exploitation of, and expected return on, investment in heritage assets when created in digital form;
- ensure that all those organisations and sections of society which can benefit from the creation of heritage information do so;
- ensure a synergy between bodies such as the HLF which are supporting content creation as part of heritage conservation and preservation, and those such as DCMS which are supporting infrastructure provision; and,
- identify the roles and ways the heritage sector can use ICT to promote education (in school and in later life) and employment.
Outcomes:
The HLF and other funding bodies would benefit if heritage institutions were to encourage and persuade DCMS, with other agencies, to act quickly to develop a national ICT strategy for the heritage sector.