Can You DIG It?Creative uses for digitisation in the cultural sector – a perspective from the Imperial War Museum

Dan Phillips (dphillips@iwm.org.uk)

Lucy Neale(lucy.neale@radiowaves.co.uk)

IWM Mission Statement 2009:Enabling people to understand human behaviour

through the lens of war and conflict

• By encouraging audiences to:– Understand human behaviour– Relate to human dilemmas– Explore the dynamics between destructive and

creative forces– Debate how people and societies deal with war and

conflict– Understand how the indescribable can be expressed

Their Past Your Future

Imperial War Museum

Established in 2004 at the Imperial War Museum

Funded by the Big Lottery Fund

An innovative learning programme that uses historical sources, sites, museums, veterans and eyewitnesses of war to increase young people’s understanding and appreciation of history, remembrance and commemoration, national identity and civic participation today

www.theirpast-yourfuture.org.uk

30+ overseas/UK visits with over 50 different schools, youth or student groups since May 2004

Digitisation involves creating a digital representation of an original collection item, such as an object, photograph, painting, document or sound recording.

The Imperial War Museum digitises material from its collections for a range of purposes – for exhibitions and learning programmes, to provide 24-hour access to our extensive collections for users worldwide via the Internet, to provide access to fragile material, and for commercial purposes.

372,000 people from Africa served in the Second World War. Pilot Officer Johnny Smythe, volunteer RAF navigator from Sierra Leone IWM Negative Number: CH 10739

The IWM Collections encompass a wealth of material:

• 19,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures constituting the second largest collection of 20th century British art in the world• 15,000 posters • 120 million feet of cine film • 10,000 hours of videotape • 56,000 hours of historical sound recordings • more than 10 million photographs, negatives and transparencies • over 15,000 collections of unpublished diaries, letters, memoirs and other papers • 270,000 library items, including books, maps and ephemera • plus thousands of three dimensional objects including, uniforms, medals, firearms, as well as hundreds of larger objects including aircraft and vehicles

TPYF Phase 1 provided £480,000 to fund a digitisation programme including Their Past Your Future Touring Exhibition and Online Exhibition (One in Five). This funding provided the additional staff needed to identify, conserve, document and digitise the material, and the equipment needed to scan and photograph large amounts of material. In total, the Collections Division digitised over 70,000 items, as follows:

• 2,412 artworks• 14,328 pages of documents• 2,752 images of objects • 4,681 publications records• 18,979 dope sheets from FVA• 30,339 photographs• 4,382 hours of sound recordings

ON THE SALONIKA FRONT DURING THE FIRST WORLD WARBritish troops wearing gas masks in the trenches. IWM Ref: Q60966

PEOPLE OF THE GREAT WAR

SHAPING THE MODERN WORLD

• Award winning educational social network www.radiowaves.co.uk

• Safe website for young people to broadcast their videos, podcasts and blogs, connect with others and report on their world

• An approach has been developed for using this technology within the Museums and Heritage Sector with The Imperial War Museum and MLA.

Enable learners to respond to collections in a new way

Gather and share evidence as reporters

Increase access and connect with new audiences

How can this content inform collections?

The 5 minute challenge!

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Use the phone to record your response using video, photo or text and send as an MMS to

smexchange@rwaves.co.uk

Digitisation Project Checklist:• Define user groups and objectivesFrom the start have clear goals and outcomes in mind for all users (e.g. Using Inspiring Learning For All framework or SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based)• Involve all museum staffAvoid trap of referring just to curators and ICT specialists. Consult across your institution, explore cross-departmental links, include knowledge transfer feedback• Test with end usersAllow time and budget for user consultation at outset, and throughout project, with commitment to actioning recommendations• Promote the project on- and off-line to drive interestUse free social networking applications, plan for specific promotion campaign, link to institution’s other online presence, explore use of adwords/search engine optimisation/pay-per-clicks/etc

• Monitor and evaluate properlyDesign a suitable monitoring tool at the outset, and evaluate from beginning of process, ensuring time and budget are available to follow this through fully, and feed results into future projects• Don’t rely solely on web site hits to measure impactWeb stats only tell part of the story, supplement them with user-monitoring, feedback, online social interaction and comments• Be flexibleTry to allow for a flexible technological solution for projects, think about future-proofing and further applications across your institution• Keep the content relevantOnline content can age quickly. Commit to and plan for ongoing refreshment and updating. Accept that online offers are iterative in their development• Plan for the futureTechnological developments, budget changes, shifting strategic direction, skills transfer can always derail ongoing success

Websites:http://collections.iwm.org.ukwww.theirpast-yourfuture.org.ukwww.throughmyeyes.org.ukwww.iwm.org.uk/peopleofthegreatwarwww.radiowaves.co.uk/tpyfhttp://nmolp.iwm.org.uk/webquests/http://iwm.nmolp.org/creativespaces/http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/publications/ (A suite of free toolsincluding toolkits, reports and case-studies, to help you overcome issues surrounding digital creation and curation.)www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance (Strategic Content Alliance (SCA) aims to build a common information environment where users of publicly funded e-content can gain best value from the investment that has been made by reducing the barriers that currently inhibit access, use and re-use of online content.)www.collectionslink.org.uk/Increase_Access/revisiting_collections (Revisiting Collections is an innovative and flexible methodology which promotes greater access and engagement with collections.)