| CIDOC NEWSLETTER
| Volume 9, August 1998
|
Bits, bytes and building blocks: the multimedia strategy at the National Gallery of Victoria and the role of documentation as a foundation for multimedia development
Helen Page
Setting the scene
In common with all public art galleries worldwide, the National Gallery of
Victoria's role is to promote the understanding, appreciation and enjoyment
of the visual arts. The Gallery regards itself as the custodian of the
richest treasury of visual arts in the Southern Hemisphere, with
responsibility for the preservation of its collection for future
generations and provision of access to those works. Currently we have over
one million visitors per year in addition to over 100,000 students and
teachers participating in our education service programs.
The size of the collection has more than doubled since the opening of the
current gallery building in 1968 meaning only a relatively small percentage
can be exhibited at any time, which was felt to be no longer acceptable.
The Strategic Plan for the National Gallery of Victoria, published in
October 1996, was developed to respond to these issues. The plan responds
to the overall Arts 21 strategies (of the Victorian government) that
outline priorities that build on the existing strengths of the arts
organisations in the State and respond to emerging opportunities in
multimedia. Two of the six strategic goals are:
- Providing World-Class Facilities - upgrade and expansion of the existing
fabric of the National Gallery of Victoria and establishment of world-class
exhibition and visitor service facilities.
- Into the Information Age - introduction of multimedia and new technology
to promote maximum accessibility to the Gallery's collection and to extend
arts education to a wider audience.
As a result, the Gallery is about to undergo significant building emphasise
expansion. The current site is scheduled to close in June 1999 for major
redevelopment. In addition, a brand new Museum of Australian Art is being
built as part of the city of Melbourne's Federation Square development.
Both galleries are due to open in 2001. From 1999 until 2001, a selection
of significant works from the permanent collections of Australian and
international art will be temporarily displayed at the old Museum of
Victoria building, the Gallery's original home.
Together these dynamic venues will more than double the space the Gallery
has for displaying its collection and provide all visitors with a uniquely
comprehensive, vibrant and challenging environment in which to experience,
appreciate, understand and enjoy the visual arts in Australia in all media
from antiquity to the present day.
These development programs will provide a sophisticated information
technology infrastructure in and across both sites, supporting a dedicated
new media arts gallery and allowing the development and delivery of
multimedia.
"Documentation" as the rationale for Multimedia Funding
Having made the big picture strategic commitments responding to the
perceived potentials of the new technologies, the challenge becomes the
practical implications for implementation of a multimedia strategy within
the Gallery.
Everything, of course, costs money. The National Gallery of Victoria is
fortunate in that the climate for multimedia development in the state of
Victoria is extremely proactive. The State has a Minister for Multimedia
(who is also the Treasurer), and a department, Multimedia Victoria, to whom
we submitted a funding proposal based on a multimedia strategy that
responded not only to the Gallery's identified requirements, but also those
of Multimedia Victoria's Strategy 21 goals, which include:
- Lead the development of a multimedia skilled community making the
transition to an information economy.
- Lead the transition to an information economy by promoting best use of
information/communications technologies and electronic commerce by private
sector firms.
- Advocate and promote growth of a strong and vibrant global communications
and multimedia industry in Victoria.
- Promote and extend Victoria's role as a major creative ccntre for the development and export
of multimedia content.
- Lead and exemplify best practice use of communications and multimedia
applications to improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of
government.
Multimedia Victoria is funding the project to the sum of $1.5 million. The
Gallery is redirecting approximately $2 million of its own internal
staffing resources during the period of the relocation whilst the building
developments are happening.
The key to the National Gallery of Victoria's multimedia strategy is to
form the infrastructures for the ongoing development of "reusable digital
assets" through which the future creation of various products and services
can be facilitated. This is where we positioned the rationale from the
"documentation" perspective.
The project comprises three core elements, through which it will be
creating a resource infrastructure for on-going multimedia product and
service development.
- Digitisation of approximately 30.000 of the 70.000 works of art
- Development of database and information management systems; and
- Development of the world wide web presence to world's best standards,
including electronic commerce, support for education services, public
programs and virtual exhibitions as well as an on-line copyright status and
pricing policy for reproduction of the works of art.
We regard the funding as seeding for long-term incorporation of project
outcomes into other Gallery programs.
Whilst the Gallery will provide overall project management, a condition of
the project funding from Multimedia Victoria is that the bulk of this work
will be undertaken by private sector organisations, selected through a
competitive expression of interest process. It is expected that this
outsourcing process will deliver enhanced results from industry partners
beyond that which could have been directly purchased by the NGV with the
$1.5 million.
Learning from the world
The shaping of this strategy, and indeed its rationale, has been a
synthesis of many ideas formulated through project elsewhere. We have no
new wheels to invent, our challenge is to identify which wheels to attach
to our wagon and how that can be effectively achieved.
We are particularly indebted to the work undertaken by the ICOM/CIDOC
Multimedia Working Group, much of which I quote below in order to place the
context and rationale for our strategy.
In the introduction to their document Introduction to Multimedia in
Museums1 the authors confirmed that multimedia played two distinct roles in
the museum context. One is as a communications tool, interpreting museum
artifacts and collections, both within the institution (in exhibition
gallery or orientation kiosk) and through distribution mechanisms (such as
published CD-ROMs or multimedia databases accessible through the Internet).
The other is as a documentation and archival tool, building integrated
museum databases that record information about collections.
True to the concepts outlined in the publication, the documentation of the
Gallery's collection has focused on collections management function,
creating a comprehensive database of structured text records, each
detailing the salient characteristics of a work of art. In defining our
multimedia strategy, we are responding to the challenge posed by the
working group, which states "...the ability to capture and store
information in formats other than structured text provides new
opportunities for the documentation and interpretation of works in museum
collections. ...The potential to re-use multimedia content (such as digital
images) created for one purpose in another project...has prompted the
consideration of institutional multimedia databases...".
Considering Interoperability
With the advent of the World Wide Web, we recognise that the digital data
we create need no longer remain in isolation within our gallery walls.
Linked together over networks, museum multimedia databases become a
valuable cultural resource. The continent of multimedia information is
just now forming in networked information space2.
Ideally, the Gallery's multimedia database will eventually join the vast
storehouse of digital information about the world's cultures. The
challenge for the National Gallery of Victoria is to prepare for this
networked future in a current environment where proven models are not yet
available.
As a Gallery, we need to develop the databases and information management
systems for our own requirements. The World Wide Web is a model of
distributed data access. It seems logical to explore a similar model in
accessing the vast storehouse of museum and gallery information, which will
be held in different institutions worldwide.
Identifying standards
The first stage of the Gallery's project is to define and write the
performance specifications which will be included in the Expression of
Interest documents. This means that we need answers to some complex
questions very quickly, or at least know the appropriate questions that the
respondents need to answer in order to allow maximum future flexibility.
Key concepts relate to the application of standards, whether they are for
subject definition or mechanisms for aiding retrieval. We are particularly
anxious to understand the relevance of Z39.50 and Dublin Core metadata to
our environment and not only follow the CIMI Testbed results with interest,
but are hoping to participate in their initiatives.
Collaborations
The inter-networked multimedia medium breaks down the physical barriers of
access to disparate cultural content held across cultural agencies. The
National Gallery of Victoria has joined with Museum Victoria, the State
Library of Victoria, Public Record Office Victoria, the Performing Arts
Museum, Victorian Arts Centre Trust to form a working party entitled COMDIG
(Cultural Organisations Metadata and Database Interoperability Group).
COMDIG was formed to provide an expert group forum to explore issues on
relevant metadata and database interoperability issues. The group is
collaborating with the Distributed Systems Technology Centre (DSTC) on a
pilot project to determine the full potential of a Z39.50 server and single
web gateway to deliver uniform and seamless online access to a diverse
range of distributed cultural sector databases.
Helen Page
Multimedia Manager
National Gallery of Victoria
Email: helen.page@ngv.vic.gov.au
