Pinterest for cultural heritage institutions – a case study
Pinterest for cultural heritage institutions – a case study
By
Neil Bates
This case study by the Europeana Foundation focuses on how their end-user engagement programme explored the value of Pinterest for cultural heritage institutions. It looks at how they opened up data and content from five Europeana partners - the University of Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya, the Swedish National Heritage Board, Varna Public Library and the Swedish Royal Armoury - and made collections visible that may otherwise not have been seen. The report also considers the social interactions the content created.
Between May and June of 2012, Europeana began to explore the potential of Pinterest as a platform for end-user engagement. The aims: to connect partner institutions with emerging social platforms, and end-users with cultural heritage content in innovative ways.
By joining forces with the University of Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya, the Swedish National Heritage Board, Varna Public Library and the Swedish Royal Armoury, Europeana presented content outside the constraints of the portal and institutional websites – providing new visibility and interaction with collections that might otherwise remain unseen. We were curious to explore what the effects of opening up data would be, in particular in terms of social interactions on the platform and the nature of the referral traffic to both Europeana and partners.
