2007 National Digital Forum conference
Digital Realities: Communities, Convergence and Sustainability
PowerPoint presentations and video recordings of the conference are available on the GOVIS website: http://richmedia.govis.org.nz/. Please note that this includes only those speakers who agreed to have their presentations recorded.
Conference 2007 Day One | Conference 2007 Day Two | NSTP Un-conference Day
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Day Two - Friday 30 November 2007
9.00 – 10.30am – Digitising Content for Communities
Chair: Dianne Macaskill, NDF Board representative for Archives New Zealand
Speaker: Joan Hori, University of Hawaii Library
Presentation: Digital resource building: The University of Hawaii Library experience with Hawaiian Sovereignty and Micronesian archives
The focus of this presentation is twofold: to explore digital resources for Hawaiian sovereignty and efforts of the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) Library to serve the needs of the nations of Micronesia. It will trace the development of digital collections on Pacific Islands at the University of Hawaii Library, and the use of these resources by faculty, students, and the local and international communities.
Historically librarians at the University have built major collections of print and audiovisual media on Hawaii and the Pacific, two areas of great concern to the University. No longer limited to on-site research, a number of the Library’s Hawaii and Pacific collections are now available online. Some of these are the Annexation of Hawaii Documents, Save Our Surf, Steve Thomas Traditional Micronesian Navigation Collection, and Trust Territory Photo Archives.
Through online use of the Trust Territory Archives and the Steve Thomas material, people in the islands have discovered material related to such areas as land cases, family history, and cultural resources, and have been able to interact with UHM librarians via the internet. Examples of this on-going dialogue will be shared in this presentation.
The Hawaiian sovereignty movement seeks a form of self government and self determination for Native Hawaiians. Different groups seek various forms of independence from the United States, to which Hawaiÿi has been politically tied since the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.
As an indigenous people seeking self government, Native Hawaiians have led the effort to share information for the revitalization of the Hawaiian language and to encourage an understanding of Hawaii through digital collections of genealogy and land information; through Hawaiian language newspapers, journals, and books; and with statistical data about Native Hawaiians. Some digital Hawaiian collections related to sovereignty issues will be reviewed in this presentation.
Joan Hori is the Curator of the world renowned Hawaiian Collection at the University of Hawaii Library. Joan’s career as a reference librarian has been at the University of Hawaii, in the undergraduate library, then the Humanities & Social Science Reference Department, and since 1995 the Special Collections Department, working with the Hawaiian Collection. She became curator of the Hawaiian Collection in 1999. Joan has an MLS, a Masters in Asian Studies, and in 1999 she completed a certificate in the Hawaiian Language. Through her efforts in language study, Joan is able to offer library instruction in Hawaiian. In her work with the Hawaiian Collection Joan has been particularly involved in collecting, preserving and creating access to materials concerning Hawaiian sovereignty, culture, history and language.
Under Joan’s leadership the Hawaiian Collection has expanded its efforts in creating digital resources such as Annexation of Hawaii (collection of documents including the famous anti-annexation petitions signed by Native Hawaiians); Hawaiian Language Newspapers; Save Our Surf (grassroots opposition to over-development); Bob Krauss Index (access to research files of a local Hawaii journalist).
Sponsored by Embassy of the United States of America
Speaker: Ingeborg Verheul, National Library of the Netherlands
Presentation: Memory of the Netherlands
Memory of the Netherlands is the national digitisation program for cultural heritage in the Netherlands. This program is funded by the ministry of education, sciences and culture and is coordinated by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. The example for Memory of the Netherlands was the Library of Congress American Memory Program.
We started the program in 2001, focussing on creating a central website containing a large database of visual interesting images from collections concerning Dutch history, culture and society, from libraries, archives and museums, mainly in the Netherlands. In the 2001-2004 period, we managed to build a collection of ca. 350.000 objects from 50 different cultural heritage institutions, and also made 25 educational applications. At the same time the project team played a role as centre of expertise for digitising and project management, providing guidelines for digitisation for access and quality management for the Dutch cultural heritage field. The program provides a funding of 70 % of the total project costs, and provides coordinating assistance from the office people.
As of 2005 we also try to create a new role for Memory of the Netherlands in providing services for the cultural heritage sector, in order to stimulate the sector (and the general public) to (re) use digitized cultural heritage material. At this moment, this focuses mostly on developing tools for educational purposes and building special web expo’s that refer to certain themes or actual events. In the meantime, the digital collection is still growing.
Currently we are in the progress of renewing the technical infrastructure and the design of our website. The technical infrastructure had become a bit old fashioned (since it was created in 2001) and will become more standardised for searching, presentation, metadata description etc. It will also provide zooming and turning the pages. We expect the technically updated website to be available in July 2007 and the new design will be launched by the end of September 2007.
Other topics to date are: the building of a TIFF-archive, a long term storage facility, embedded in KB’s digital repository system, for TIFF-images that are produced through the Memory program since 2005; strengthening our position in the national infrastructure for digitised cultural heritage and trying to attract more visitors each month.
In my presentation I will talk about the pro’s and con’s of running a national program for digitising of cultural heritage, including pitfalls and plus-points you meet when carrying out projects. What, for instance, does it mean for the museum and archive world if a library steps forward with an initiative like this. Another interesting perspective is the current discussion in our library regarding mass digitisation and the question how we have to present all the digitized collections to the public and what the role of Memory of the Netherlands could be in this.
Ingeborg Verheul studied Dutch language and literature at the Free University of Amsterdam, with a specialisation in book- and library science. After some years in the University Library of Amsterdam as a cataloguer, she started to work for the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, national library of the Netherlands, in 1997. She has working experience as project coordinator of Metamorfoze, the Dutch paper preservation program, and staff member of the Research & Development Division. In this function she was involved in the funding of Blue Shield Netherlands, KB/OCLCs digitizing & microfilming company Strata Preservation and coordinated several (inter)national cooperative activities between libraries and archives in the field of preservation (both paper and digital). In 2004-2005 she carried out a research on the state of the art in digital preservation in 15 national libraries. The result of this study, which was carried out for ICABS, was published in 2006 in the IFLA Series.
Since 2006 she is program manager of Memory of the Netherlands, the national program for digitisation of cultural heritage, which is coordinated by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Currently, Ingeborg is also active as a member of the IFLA Working Group on the Guidelines of Digital Libraries, as assistant information coordinator of the IFLA Preservation & Conservation Section and as member of the editorial board of De Boekenwereld. A Dutch magazine for the history of books and print.
Sponsored by Royal Netherlands Embassy
11.00 – 12.30 - Cultural Heritage Content
Chair: Haki Tahana, NDF Board representative for Te Roopu Whakahau
Speaker: Mike Hennessey, Ngati Whatua
Presentation: Capturing the past, recording the present and communicating with the future
In this presentation we study the process of oral history archiving by using a number of actual archiving projects as our case studies. We look at the challenges, the successes and the obligations that go with this work and what we are trying to achieve. We also look at the economics and the audience, asking:
- How do we create and manage opportunities to capture and record oral history.
- How do we preserve and deliver this content in a way that is durable.
- And finally, how do we present this content in a format that can engage with all sectors of the community.
The final question of ‘audience’ will close the presentation. Should we present our work in a fashion that is true to its origins or should we be driven by making the content appealing to the younger generation? Should these two approaches in fact be mutually exclusive? In this closing segment we examine the ‘culture as cool food’ generation - the ways they have been prepared to assimilate content by the mass media - and whether this should change our approach as practitioners within our industry.
Speaker: Maakere Edwards and Ruakere Hond, Te Pute Routiriata o Taranaki
Presentation: The Taranaki Maori digital archive
This presentation describes the progress to date of the ‘Kete Taranaki Reo’ an archive that builds on the Kete Horowhenua open-source software design adding features that the Taranaki Maori community see as being relevant. Most notable of the additions being developed, or in the pipeline for development, are:
- Permission levels for protection of community intellectual property
- Taranaki reo online dictionary with discussion forums
- Inclusion of the Maori Subject Headings
- An intention to focus strongly on audio files
Once the model and software infrastructure are designed and implemented there is a potential for a national network of regional Maori community archives interlinked with consistent metadata and access protocols.
Speaker: Christine Tuitubou, Auckland Museum Library
Presentation: Satisfying the questing spirit: Digital voyaging and the Pacific
It appears that anything can be digitized these days for access on local or global networks. The session explores the virtual side of the Pacific. The session is a deliberate, and eclectic, exploration - the sites and simulacra - of the Pacific on the internet. We will look at examples from different communities, show how institutional and personal collections are presented to the world through virtual galleries and spaces, provide challenging examples from web 2.0 communities and illustrate the issues of access, usability and the values of hyper realities.
1.30 – 2.15pm – Auditorium – Future Digital Projects
Chair: Seddon Bennington, NDF Board representative for Te Papa
Speaker: Phillipa Tocker, Museums Aotearoa
Presentation: Distributed national collection projects
Our national arts, culture and heritage collections are distributed among a wide range of organisations throughout New Zealand. All objects and collections held in public ownership can be regarded as New Zealand's 'distributed national collection', for which museums, art galleries and other collecting institutions take responsibility on behalf of the government and the people of New Zealand. Museums Aotearoa and our major museums and galleries are working together to make the 'best' of this national collection, wherever it may normally reside, visible and accessible for the public via a touring exhibition, book and website. This project will enable people from all walks of life to access and appreciate the importance and value of our public collections. It will encourage the people of New Zealand to better understand our collective national heritage and to realise the breadth and depth of items held in collections throughout the land. The project is based on expert advice across the full range of collecting areas, bringing together information about those objects and collections deemed to be most significant and important to our nation. From this database, items will be selected for the touring exhibition and publication. Information-sharing among the collecting institutions is key to the success of the project. The digital opportunities now available make this possible, and the project will develop a framework for ongoing online communication and collaboration. The paper will outline progress on the project so far, and explore the challenges and opportunities it offers – to the museum and art gallery community, the wider collecting domains, and the people of New Zealand.
Speaker: Brenda Leeuwenberg, NZ On Air
Presentation: What is local content in the digital era?
This portal is an innovative presentation online of New Zealands audio-visual history spanning film, television, music and new media. It will be an interactive curated site of screen culture, profiling actors, directors, writers, producers and behind the scenes personnel, all who make the screen culture come alive. This portal will be a partnership across industry, government, education and the screen industry and will be an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers, students and the general public in New Zealand and those throughout the world interested in New Zealand’s film, television and digital media.
1.30 – 2.15pm (parallel session) – Square Affair – Recent Research on Digitisation of Culture and Heritage
Chair: Tracy Puklowski, Te Papa
Speaker: Conal McCarthy, Museum & Heritage Studies programme, Victoria University of Wellington
Presentation: Digital heritage and the culture of new media: An empirical model of a New Zealand museum website
Despite the recent growth of digital heritage such as virtual museums, we lack detailed research on the intersection of museums and new media. This study presents the results of a survey of websites of New Zealand museums and heritage organisations using an idealized model of the basic functionality required in a well defined professional sector. When this empirical model was compared with actual websites, it was found that many functions were not fully implemented. Interviews were then undertaken with museum staff which provided insights into the social factors affecting the planning, implementation and maintenance of museum websites which were evidently developed in a haphazard fashion. It was concluded that although museum websites do reflect fundamental museum functions, there were significant differences. The results paint a bleak picture of an uneven and fragmented field, a digital divide which disadvantages small to medium museums. The paper recommends more guidelines rather than more technology, and calls for further research into the ‘culture of new media’.
Speaker: Joanne Evans, Research Fellow, eScholarship Research Centre, University of Melbourne
Presentation: Connecting the disconnected: What do Sydney’s Tank Stream, Azaria Chamberlain’s matinee jacket and Sir Robert Menzies’ Bentley have in common?
The explosion in capacities for web content creation brought about by the development and uptake of digital and network technologies poses a number of challenges for those working in the cultural heritage sector. More importantly there are some significant opportunities. Tapping their rich potential is an imperative, but how that may be achieved in a scalable and sustainable manner is also of paramount concern. Libraries, archives, galleries and museums have all identified the role of contextual or authority entities as critical to understanding the materials they manage. However the need to surface these surrogates so that they may act as the boundary objects necessary to efficiently and effectively interconnect complex, distributed, multi-faceted, knowledge systems has yet to be fully recognised. This presentation will outline the story of the development of an online edition of the Australian Dictionary of Biography (http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/adbonline.htm), its role as cultural informatics infrastructure, and the manner in which it can both connect to and connect up other online initiatives.
2.15 – 3.15pm – Auditorium – Community Partnership Fund updates
Chair: Seddon Bennington, NDF Board representative for Te Papa
Speaker: Electronic remembrance : the review
Presentation: Bruce Ralston, Auckland War Memorial Museum
The Community Partnership Fund project to digitise World War One nominal rolls has been completed. The result, a vast increase in data about service personnel, is accessible through the Auckland Museum website through new interactive search screens. What have we learned from this project in terms of the scoping, the potential for collaboration and the needs to future proof? This session is proposed as a share with Archives New Zealand presentation on the new War Art site. It will emphasise the interlinkages which are possible between institutions in a very practical way.
Speaker: Joann Ransom, Horowhenua Library Trust
Presentation: Kete Horowhenua
In 2006 Horowhenua Library Trust successfully received a grant from the Community Partnership Fund, National Digital Strategy, to build a web application called Kete Horowhenua. Kete Horowhenua is a community built digital library of arts, cultural and heritage resources. It aims to get the private collections and knowledge of our community sitting alongside our public collections. The digital photograph collections of the Foxton and Horowhenua Historical Societies (10,000 items) have seeded the database, and contributions of Items from our community may be images of photographs or objects, documents, audio or video footage. The Kete community can participate in a variety of ways: searching the database, editing and adding to Topics (wikipedia-type articles), adding new Items, linking Topics and Items together, discussing memories, and contacting fellow Kete users with similar research interests. Many thousands of hours of voluntary labour have resulted in fully keyword searchable newspaper stories, biographies, and minutes from the first Borough Council formed in 1906 and the first volume of minutes from the Otaki sitting of the Maori Land Court. The public and administration interfaces of Kete Horowhenua are internet based. The software is fully configurable with all fields and templates fully customizable in the set up stage. Kete Horowhenua was developed with Ruby on Rails, utilizes Zebra z39.50 full text indexing engine developed by IndexData, is fully compatible with Koha 2.4 and above, and is released under a GNU General Public License (GPL). As an open source project the Kete software is available for download and we invite other communities to build their own Kete and contribute to the software project by contributing their own code. This presentation will showcase examples of how Kete has been used to date by the community.
Speakers: Betty Hauraki and John Simpson, Te Whakaruruhau o Ngā Reo Irirangi Māori
Presentation: Te Kohinga
Te Whakaruruhau o Ngā Reo Irirangi Māori was set up to represent the interests of Māori radio. Its twenty member stations are based in every region of Aotearoa. The organisation owns and operates entities that are active in the fields of switching, networking and linkage (PungaNet), web based content delivery (http://www.irirangi.net), content management, training and the Māori Media Awards. Te Kohinga – Te Whakaruruhau archive project is a response to a plea from stations holding recorded material since the late 1980s. Almost twenty one thousand items have been accumulated since that time. The project is funded by Te Whakaruruhau, the Department of Internal Affairs' Digital Strategy and Radio NZ. A project team was set up four years ago to scope the problem, source potential funding and to consult with appropriate agencies and companies to ensure that best practice would be followed and technological advice was reflective of the most up to date methods. In addition issues relating to project management, rights management, the housing of the collection, intellectual property and on-going maintenance loomed high on the discussion. A shortage of funds prompted the organisation to adopt a novel approach to content capture while providing training for station staff in the areas of database maintenance, analogue to digital conversion methods, nomenclature and metadata.
2.15 – 3.15pm (parallel session) – Square Affair – Recent Research on Digitisation of Culture and Heritage
Chair: Alison Stevenson, NDF Board representative for Victoria University of Wellington
Speaker: Mark Crookston, Archives NZ
Presentation: Digital heritage resources in tertiary education
This paper is a précis of a research project submitted in 2006 as part of the Masters of Library and Information Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. The purpose of this research is to provide a starting point to bridge the gap in knowledge on the use of digital resources in New Zealand education. A web-based survey was sent to history and Maori studies faculty addressing questions on; what, why, and how digital resources are used in teaching? Why they are (or aren’t) being used? How they are used? And what additional attributes are wanted from the digital resource collections in New Zealand? This research is framed by constructivist learning theory, which asserts that knowledge is actively constructed in the mind of the student through a range of problem solving, interactive, and thinking experiences. Similarly, the research questions were underpinned by recent education literature, which outlines the many benefits of integrating digital resources into the learning environment. The findings of this research reinforce the theory and literature, and provide a starting point for understanding the use of digital resources in tertiary education in New Zealand Studies. This paper will be presented through 4 key findings. These are:
- the benefits of using digital resources in education
- the need to study users
- the importance of visual impact
- suggested future research questions for understanding this issue in NZ
It should be noted that the response rate was a low 19% (17 out of a population of 92). While the low response rate possibly compromises the generalisability of the results, some interesting trends and conclusions can be extracted from the data. A peer reviewed article on this research can be found at: http://www.lianza.org.nz/publications/journal/files/NZLIMJ_Vol50_Iss2_April2007.pdf
Speaker: Ingrid Mason, Victoria University of Wellington
Presentation: The Republic of Letters and New Zealand Scholarly Web Presence
This presentation is two-fold: it looks at (1) what a scholarly web presence might be and (2) how that scholarly web presence might form part of a nation’s digital heritage. The Republic of Letters is a phrase used to describe scholarly exchange in the Age of Enlightenment. This phrase is used as a metaphor to examine these two questions.
(1) What is a scholarly web presence? What drove scholars to meet in coffee houses, correspond, share the evidence they collected, and send copies of their latest work to each other? What traditions and patterns of scholarly communication have persisted or changed with engaging this way online? How does making scholarly data and information available online via a digital research repository fit into this idea of a new age of Enlightenment via ICTs?
(2) How does a scholarly web presence relate to digital heritage? One of the strengths of scholarly dialogue is that it can transcend national boundaries. If a scholar was born, lives, and works in New Zealand, but mostly publishes in a journal published in another country, how does this scholar’s work
form part of New Zealand’s digital heritage? This question and others are posed with a view to understanding how New Zealand’s scholarly community contributes to and forms part of New Zealand’s digital heritage, and how digital research repositories support this.
3.45 – 4.45pm – National Digitisation Initiatives
Chair: Penny Carnaby, NDF Board representative for the National Library of New Zealand
Speaker: Steve Knight, National Library of New Zealand
Presentation: National Digital Heritage Archive
The National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa) Act 2003 requires the Library to collect, preserve, protect and make accessible digital collections, along with traditional paper collections, in ways that ensure current and future access to New Zealand’s documentary heritage. The Act also extended legal deposit to include electronic documents, such as CDs, DVDs and websites. The NDHA Programme was established in July 2004 with the announcement of $24 million being allocated in that year’s budget to the National Library of New Zealand (NLNZ) for digital preservation. The goal of the NDHA Programme is to ensure the Library has the key infrastructural and technological environments it needs to ensure ongoing access to and preservation of the National Library’s digital heritage collections in accordance with its legislative mandate. The project is due to be completed in 2009. The NDHA will be the National Library’s storehouse for the digital assets such as websites, CDs, DVDs, images and digitised copies of print assets that make up our digital heritage collections. The NDHA will preserve these items and ensure that they can still be viewed, listened to and explored in the future, even if the original technology has become obsolete. The NDHA will be replicable in other organisations and will serve as an international model for the implementation of digital archives and preservation management. This presentation will outline the National Library’s work on digital preservation, how the NDHA fits into that work, what is expected to be deliverd through the NDHA and how the NDHA fits into the wider strategic initiatives currently underway in New Zealand, eg the Digital Content Strategy.
Speaker: Lewis Brown, National Library of New Zealand
Presentation: Creating a digital New Zealand: The Digital Content Strategy
In a world awash in digital content from all cultures, how do we ensure our own cultures, views and identities rise to the surface for New Zealanders to enjoy and appreciate? Will we ever see more New Zealanders than overseas tourists contributing to New Zealand tagged content on websites like Flickr or Technorati? Portals and .nz web domains have their place, but they can never compete with the world in terms of quantity or visibility. Instead, we need to engage and build ownership among New Zealand communities, and draw them into a richly composed digital space with a taste of the authentic and the familiar. We also need to be there at every turn in that digital space with a digital New Zealand perspective. Creating a Digital New Zealand: New Zealand’s Digital Content Strategy is about making New Zealand visible and relevant in a connected digital world. It aims to ensure that we are innovative, informed and capable in telling our stories, experiencing our heritage and cultures, and creating our digital future. To that end, an important starting point for the strategy is recognising that the value of content is in what it delivers and enables for end-users. Some of the key challenges and possible responses to take us towards a digital New Zealand are presented.
5.00 – 5.15pm
Summary: John Garraway, NDF Board chair
NDF Board Reportback from Digital Future Summit: Dr. Seddon Bennington, Chief Executive of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; Dianne Macaskill, Chief Executive and Chief Archivist of Archives New Zealand; and Penny Carnaby, National Librarian and Chief Executive of the National Library
Poroporoaki: Haki Tahana, NDF Board
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