Works of art, hungarian collections in gigabites
Museums and digitization in Hungary
MúzeumCafé 27.
Thirty years ago the international committee for museum documentation, CIDOC, held a meeting in Budapest where it was first raised that Hungarian museums should join the network. Since then there’s not been a great deal of success. Of the 14 million documents currently held in Europeana no more than 9 out of every 1000 are Hungarian. In 1981 the poor IT standards of Hungarian museums spelt problems, though they couldn’t avoid technical development. Thus in 1989 the first real database management system was launched in the Hungarian National Museum. After the political changes more museums realised the importance of IT for record-keeping and in 1996-97 the idea arose that the most important collections should be linked in a single metadatabase, such that the electronically processed information could be searched by anyone. This would have been the MAMA project, a first sign of the failure that still characterises attempts to centralise the data of Hungarian museums. In vain did a 2002 ministerial decree on the regulation of museum records make computerised record-keeping possible; in vain was there a survey in 2003 of how much digitizable material was held by museums, archives and libraries; in vain was the National Digital Datastore established at that time; in vain has there been free access for all collections to the Museums’ Record System – apart from a few institutes there has been no spectacular result up to today. Nevertheless, resources have appeared which have helped some institutions to develop their digitized databases to a significant degree, both hardware and software, but a uniform interface is still lacking. Likewise, there was no real result after 2008 when the National Museum’s “national level methodological and coordinating function in relation to the digitization of cultural goods held in museums” was stressed as a major task; nor was there any after the 2009 formation of the Museums’ Digitization Committee. However, the committee did identify the specific obstacles and shortcomings hindering the development of digitization in the field of public collections.
– There is no harmonization between the Hungarian practice and EU-defined digitization projects. The recommendations accessible on the internet are acknowledged only by a few people and with significant delay.
– Software searching and development falls short of the necessary specifics and power for the actual uploading of databases, for the convertibility of earlier data and even for convertibility itself; nor is it adequate for the long-term, secure saving of the digitized material.
– There is no clear picture of how many museum staff have access to the databases of the internal network, and there is no exact data about what proportion of material in museum libraries is accessible in digital format.
– The issue of authors’ and researchers’ legal rights in relation to objects and documents in collections is not addressed uniformly; the practice varies in line with the type of collection. There are no reassuring solutions as regards the demands for a more market-oriented approach.
MúzeumCafé approached a number of specialists to share their own experiences, observations, proposals and concepts for development. A basic question was why there have been no clear results with museum digitization in comparison with library databases. Those responding agree that the multifarious nature of collections involving the naming and classification of items leads to diversity and complexity. Thus the effective use of digitized databases in museums remains problematic. It’s true that today no one claims they cannot digitize records and archive material due to the lack of computers and software, but the lack of expertise causes many problems and due to the absence of transparency in the tender system huge sums are spent on digitization whose quality is often questionable. It is also a big problem that items to be digitized don’t appear connected in the museum databases. In the majority of cases there are databases already with metadata, texts about art objects and digitized items (for example, pictures) but the links between them are absent. Not only is there no cross access between all museum databases in Hungary, right up to the 2010 ATHÉNA project Hungarian museums were not linked to any international digital system. The lack of connections between museums in Hungary and with international systems was not simply due to a lack of projects but also because the Hungarian systems were not technologically suitable. With the exception of a few museums there is a lack of input and output matching international standards, which would create the possibility for the flow of data exchange. However, a new opportunity for the digitization of Hungarian public collections arose with the appearance last June of a new institution, the Hungarian National Digital Data Archives (MaNDA). The new body would like to make the archive materials of museums, libraries, archives, film and photographic collections accessible on one website. In the first stage of work a central open interface is being established which reflects the already existing digital collections. At the same time, with the help of a smart, metasearch engine developed by them, online searches of existing databases are set in motion which aim to reach the data sought by the user amidst the metacontent. Thus the systems launch a simultaneous search of different databases and the user can find links to items held by different public collections including museums. The other conception of MaNDA (disputed by museologists) involves establishing a National Logistical Centre for Cultural Documentation in the former socialist industrial town of Ózd in northern Hungary. The brownfield investment is focussed on the site of the town’s former iron and metal works, and apart from a digitizing unit the idea also involves creation of a festival centre, a scientific and educational facility, an archive, a library, other communal space and a warehouse of objects open to the public – using resources from both EU and Hungarian tenders. The future of museum digitization will be greatly influenced by the extent to which the aforementioned problems can be solved. What type of instruction can be established in the education centre? Can it ensure that museums constantly pay attention to the state of their digitization and maintain the results in up-to-date formats? What resources are there for museums to be able to install the relevant uploading and downloading software to encompass international data in appropriate formats, as well as to upgrade the hardware? Will there be the possibility and pressure for museum specialists to develop a common system of definition and categorization? In what direction will the current tenders for addressing ad hoc solutions to existing problems change? Can MaNDA successfully tackle the issue of data centralization, which has remained unresolved for decades?