What is the Culture Grid?
The Culture Grid joins up UK collections information from different sources and makes it available for more use by more people.
What is the aim of the Culture Grid?
The aim of the Culture Grid is to amplify the impact and value of UK collections information.
What are the benefits of the Culture Grid?
The Culture Grid opens up UK collections information: People are better connected to UK collections information as access can be provided in more ways from more services fed by the Culture Grid.
The Culture Grid joins up UK collections information: The sector has a single place to offer UK collections information (as a whole or in parts) to more services for more use and audience reach.
The Culture Grid adds value to UK collections information: Funders and producers of collections information gain better return on investment from increased use and reach; and strategic development of the Culture Grid.
What kinds of collections information can you add to the Culture Grid?
You can add collections information, (descriptions referencing image, audio, video and text content) about:
- Items in museum, library and archive etc collections (objects, documents, photos etc)
- Collections in museums, libraries and archives etc, (their scope and coverage etc)
- Collections related organisations (contact and access details etc)
How will collections information be stored in the Culture Grid?
In the case of item information this will mostly be descriptions and preview content, (thumbnail images), so that people can be referred back to the original source for further information and higher quality content, (i.e. Culture Grid acts as a registry or directory)
The Culture Grid can also act as a repository for directly holding, managing and supplying collections information and content for different purposes, e.g. for Collection and Institution descriptions
What collections information is in the Culture Grid now?
Over 1 million item records, mostly of images of objects from over 40 different collections of national, regional and local scope from museums, libraries , archives and elsewhere
Over 8,500 collection descriptions covering all subjects areas
Over 7,500 institution descriptions of museums, libraries, archives etc
How will collections information in the Culture Grid grow?
- From join up with funding programmes, e.g. Europeana and MLA managed Renaissance in the Regions programme
- From project join up e.g. Public Catalogue Foundation; Subject Specialist ‘Collection Mapping’; Inspire (Library collection descriptions); University Museums In Scotland SPIRIT
- Open invitation
Where can collections information from the Culture Grid be found?
The Culture Grid now powers the People’s Network Discover Service and Find a Library and Exploring 20th Century London
The Culture Grid acts as the UK collections information feed into Europeana, the European Cultural
Search Engines such as Google should be able to easily index information from the Culture Grid
Any websites (organisational, sector, place or subject specific etc) could add a custom search of collections information from the Culture Grid or connect to Culture Grid by API interaction or OAI harvesting
What is the rights situation governing material in the Culture Grid ?
There is no transfer of ownership in rights through contributing records or any media files to the Culture Grid.
Instead contributors are asked to Licence material using Creative Commons Licensing and record rights information within records so that viewers and users of records are aware of the rights governing material in collections.
Records (metadata) submitted to the Culture Grid should by be made available under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial share-alike (by_nc_sa) Licence, so that they may be used for non-commercial purposes, such as education and research, so long as the source is always attributed and any derivative works are made available under the same terms.
Any media files hosted by the Culture Grid should also be made available under by_nc_sa terms wherever possible e.g. for works that are out of copyright. If third party rights do not allow for these terms and conditions of use, then another appropriate licence should be applied and included in the metadata record.
For a full introduction to Creative Commons licensing and tools to generate appropriate CC licences for materials see: http://creativecommons.org/international/uk/
Can the Culture Grid help with income stream generation?
Yes, as the Culture Grid refers people back to the sources who contribute, it acts as a marketing tool for any commercial services you offer e.g. image buying features on your websites, (many of the current contributors to Culture Grid offer such services).
Also, as the Culture Grid act as a directory for the Image Buying, Print on Demand and Global Licensing services Collection Trust is developing with established partners in these fields, the Grid contribution could directly help your income generating plans.
What is the timeline for Culture Grid developments?
The Culture Grid initially runs as a ‘start up’ service project from April 2009 to Mar 2011, funded through a mix of funding sources, including MLA core funding to Collections Trust and European Commission funding
Developments to April 2010 focused on establishing technical systems and service management
Developments from April 2010 to Mar 2011 focus on more operational service development, particularly increasing access to and use of UK collections information
From April 2011 the Culture Grid is to be sustained as a core service by Collections Trust as part of its mission to ensure that collections are accessible to all
