– Digitisation and collaboration with a private enterprise

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DIGITISING THE DANISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION’S ARCHIVES DIGITISING THE DANISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION’S ARCHIVES DIGITISING THE DANISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION’S ARCHIVES Partners in the CHAOS:\_ set-up can access the API and use a range of plug-ins for e.g. Wordpress and Drupal. These tools allow users to incorporate objects and collections from danskkulturarv.dk and to pull out data to external applications or websites. The only requirement is that the content must comply with any rights restrictions applying to the material in question.

Case 2 – Digitisation and collaboration with a

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international price levels from approximately EUR 50 per hour to a rate of less than EUR 3 per hour when digitizing DAT tapes.

The reduction in price was a consequence of the implementation of inter-nal and exterinter-nal workflows and new methods that simplified the process while removing manual and physical bottlenecks. This method can be described as based on “transparent boxes”.² In contrast to a “black box”, the concept of “transparent boxes” employs an open form of outsourcing where both parties can use each other’s competencies and insights at various stages in the workflow; a much more flexible approach compared to specifying both the given input, process and output.

These new processes evolved while digitising DR’s collection of DAT tapes; a collection which encompasses more than 180,000 tapes, each with two hours of playing time. It was – and to this day probably still remains – the world’s largest DAT digitisation effort. A work that could not be delayed as the collection was at risk of deterioration.

When the project was launched, DR did not have the hardware or exper-tise required for industrialised digitisation of DAT tapes, so after a tender process, the corporation entered into a partnership with Memnon. One of the criteria stipulated in the tender process was that the successful bidder must enter into close co-operation with DR on developing new digitisation processes. That particular requirement reflected DR’s wish to have the entire collection digitised at a cost corresponding to EUR 3 per hour or a total of EUR 1.2 million for the entire collection – a target price so low that it would require the development of new methods previously unseen in the market.

The radical reduction in price is partly a result of overall developments in technology: Better and cheaper technology regularly becomes available.

However, the key factor was the process optimization created through the use of the “transparent boxes” and the new digitization methods it helped DR and Memnon to develop together both in the physical and technical domain.

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DIGITISING THE DANISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION’S ARCHIVES DIGITISING THE DANISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION’S ARCHIVES DIGITISING THE DANISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION’S ARCHIVES

Sharing generates value

The DR Cultural Heritage Project is not yet concluded, but the project clearly demonstrates that sharing is an important parameter for success within the digital cultural sector. While digitising its archives, DR has shared knowledge and information with other stakeholders – inside the DR organisation and externally – thereby creating new knowledge, op-timising methods, and developing new technology that has speeded up the digitising work. Furthermore, other international broadcasters and AV archives have been allowed to share in the lessons learned by DR, meaning that those organisations now use the same processes to digitise their own archives, enjoying the same savings that DR achieved. [2]

The project has focused on developing an open platform capable of facilitating proper presentation and dissemination of the Danish digital cultural heritage. Ideally, all cultural institutions should be able to use

[2] Uffe Elbæk, former Minister of Culture, giving the opening speech at the launch of danskkulturarv.dk, 12 September 2012 in the DR-City.

CC BY-SA 4.0 The DR Cultural Heritage Project.

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this platform to ensure that digital collections can enrich each other across institutional boundaries, and at the same time they will, jointly and separately, have the opportunity to develop new digital products.

Such products can offer users new and better access to the history shared by all Danes, allowing it to be re-contextualised in accordance with the various cultural institutions’ individual strategies and technological op-portunities. In other words, sharing knowledge, experiences, methods, means, and technologies is essential in order to allow everyone in the cultural sector to optimise their work and expenditure – and in order to avoid having numerous institutions spend money on developing systems that others are already working on.

1 http://hack4dk.wordpress.com/ Read more in Jacob Wang’s article p. 178 ff.

2 Golodnoff & Lerkenfeld 2011.

References

The Danish Ministry of Culture, Media Policy Agreement (“Mediepolitisk aftale for 2007-2010”), 6 June 2006, no updates, 10 April 2013, http://kum.dk/Docu-ments/Kulturpolitik/medier/Medieaftalen/medieaftale%202007-2010%5b1%5d.

pdf

Golodnoff & Lerkenfeld, Exploring Cultural Heritage and Value Creation – a case study for DR’s Cultural Heritage Project, August 2011, 10 April 2013, http://is-suu.com/lerkenfeld/docs/ma-thesis

The Five Finger Plan: DR in Ørestaden. Draft work schedule (“Femfingerplanen: DR i Ørestaden. Udkast til en arbejdsplan.”). Prepared by DR, 6 May 1999.

Emmanuel Hoog (then President of Ina and FIAT), World call for the preservation of broadcast archives, October 2004, 10 April 2013, www.ccaaa.org/paper_

worldcall.html

For additional information on www.danskkulturarv.dk, please consult the websites www.dr.dk/kulturarv and www.chaos-community.org.

OPEN DATA AT THE SWEDISH NATIONAL HERITAGE BOARD

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Open data at the Swedish National Heritage Board

LARS LUNDQVIST, HEAD OF INFORMATION DEVELOPMENT,