- Libraries and museums, particularly smaller, regional ones, face similar problems of storage, funding, engagement and discovery.
- The issues facing custodians and experts in preservation and communication are wider than academic challenges but interlaced.
- Yet there is no infrastructure really supporting genuinely collaborative academic effort and leadership to raise and address this issue as an Australian issue, our cultural memories are stored by Google, Facebook, Ancestry and Instagram, who give no guarantee to preserve these memories, in the country with the world’s longest continual culture. Meanwhile, our cultural institutes are unable to collectively address this issue (through no fault of their own). For example: https://theconversation.com/historic-collections-could-be-lost-to-digital-dinosaurs-31524 … the only problem I have with the article is why does it take CSIRO (scientists) to explain it?
- The answer? Centres of Excellence are quite short term compared to NCRIS but 3D digital heritage does not have a NCRIS, a Centre of Excellence or even cross-Australian institute agreed formats. The question of historical and heritage preservation is wider and bigger than academic disciplines and unlikely to be captured by one tool or database. I suggest an answer that helps the spread of information and technological solutions between audience, community, academic and institution is urgently needed. And such a scheme would preferably be ongoingly competitive (micro seeding grants or larger), rather than funded completely at the start, to a few vocal people. The concept of “gaps” is key here. A fishing net (flexible infrastructure) is full of gaps but only to a certain size, can be moved, and rises or falls with the water level. While a bridge (conventional infrastructure) requires people to converge to two key places, it cannot be moved, but it can be easily swamped or flooded. In the Netherlands they have moved from constructing dykes to building “amphibious” houses that are moored to a jetty but can rise or fall on the sea. I think that is the smarter option.
Ear Zow Digital