Digital Decisions and Online Heritage: an Examination of the Response of the GLAM Sector to the Opportunities of the Internet Since 2000

Abstract

The digitisation of a critical mass of heritage collections has been an aspiration for successive UK governments and the heritage sector since the year 2000, with the stated aim of reaching new unserved audiences and thereby democratising heritage. But analysis shows that only an estimated 8.5% of the UK’s collections have been digitised and shared with the public. This research argues that there is a gap between what the UK Government believes is the purpose and value of digitisation and that expressed within the heritage discourse, and that this has been a barrier to digitisation. It examines predictions made during the years 1997-2003, a time when digitisation was being widely debated, and identifies three themes: Digital death and Obsolescence (fears linked to the speed of technological change), Ownership and the Public/Private web (the benefits and threats of sharing collections online) and Authority and Democratisation (the sharing of the curatorial role with visitors and the notion that digitisation can democratise heritage). Interviews with digital heritage professionals reveal they believe cost, time and copyright concerns to have been the main barriers to digitisation. I show that these practical challenges have been exacerbated by external pressures: technological, economic and social but predominantly political. The 2018 DCMS Culture is Digital report identifies the main barrier as a lack of digital maturity, but I argue this could equally be described as a lack of business maturity. I conclude that mass digitisation is unlikely to be a priority for heritage unless it can be successfully monetised, but that the Covid-19 crisis has created a new focus on this. I recommend that heritage organisations should take the lead from commercially successful museums like the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands, which has successfully digitised almost its entire collection and shared it with no restrictions. I recommend that if the government wants to professionalise the sector, it needs to give British heritage organisations the same creative and financial freedom the Rijksmuseum has enjoyed. For UK heritage organisations, I recommend that a culture of open sharing might prove to be the key to democratising heritage, while at the same time helping them to discover the value and purpose of digitisation.