Encouraging digital access to culture
Encouraging digital access to culture
By
Department of Culture, Media and Sport
Gives guidance to decision makers in the cultural sector on increasing public digital access to cultural institutions. It encourages rapid deployment of digital techniques where they will do good, by engaging more people, raising the quality of experiences, and saving money. Includes sections on organisational strategy and leadership, organisational culture, the building blocks of digital projects and services, and 10 essential steps to take towards digital engagement with the arts.
In order to make best use of these databases, the development community needs to know that they exist and needs to know the format of the information and the interfaces (APIs) that have been made available.
APIs have to be understandable and usable, but people need to know about them too. One successful way to spread the word is to mount ‘hack days’, where technologists, developers, business people, users and content experts – anyone with an interest – is invited to a one- or two-day event. Itis important to involve people who understand the cultural content (e.g. curators, writers) to make the most of what’s on offer. The hack day might be mounted by an institution, or a sector. The various data and interfaces to them are described and prototype applications are quickly brainstormed and developed to see which ones are worth pursuing.
