Museum open data ecosystems: a comparative study
| Date | 01 October 2021 |
| Pages | 761-779 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-05-2021-0102 |
| Published date | 01 October 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Peter Booth,Trilce Navarrete,Anne Ogundipe |
Museum open data ecosystems:
a comparative study
Peter Booth
BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway
Trilce Navarrete
School of History, Culture and Communication, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and
Anne Ogundipe
Independent Reseacher, Oslo, Norway
Abstract
Purpose –This study aims to investigate how, in forming their policy towards open data (OD), art museums
interact with the OD ecosystems they are part of, comprising internal and external components such as cultural
policy, legal frameworks, user groups and economic conditions and incentives.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors structure their research as a multiple case study based on
three OD ecosystems, each defined by a mid-sized European art museum at its centre. Qualitative analysis of
the case studies proceeds from interviews with museum management staff and policy-related agencies in three
European countries, in addition to document analysis.
Findings –The results of this study suggest that museums are sensitive towards their environments and
respond to their ecosystem based on what is communicated within their networks. However, museums are not
effective in communicating with their users, limiting the informational interdependence necessary for well-
functioning OD ecosystems. EU policy appears to be a driving force along with national financial incentives,
though institutional conditions are limiting progress. Advancing the field relies instead on an epistemological
shift to understand the museum as part of a larger information network.
Originality/value –As the first comparative case study of art museum OD ecosystems that the authors are
aware of, the study provides a qualitative analysis of the complex dynamics impacting OD policy within the
mid-sized art museum. Theauthors identify specific dynamics that are thus far restricting further development
of the OD ecosystem of the mid-sized European art museum.
Keywords Open data, Museums, Ecosystems, Reuse, Networks, Cultural policy, Users
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Art museums increasingly strive to be “open”along with cultural, political and museological
ideals characterized by notions of transparency, collaborative processes and open access to
culture (Dupuy et al., 2015). Relevant in this regard is open data (OD), for which the basic
premise is simple: A museum releases digitized collection data in formats and standards that
permit varying levels of reuse by machines, intermediaries or human end-users. Illustrating
openness permitting commercial reuse, games developer Ubisoft incorporated elements from
the National Museum of Antiquities Leiden (NMoAL) in its Assassin’s Creed video game.
Non-commercial reuse occurs when another museum accesses the NMoAL’s collection via the
European OD aggregator, Europeana, to improve their own website offering.
Museum open
data
ecosystems
761
The authors sincerely thank all their informants. They also thank the participants of the cultural
economics seminar in the Erasmus University Rotterdam and Andrea Wallace for comments to an
earlier version of this text. This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway [project number
247602]. The Programme on the Culture and Media Sector (KULMEDIA).
Disclosure statement: Anne Ogundipe is employed by Arts Council Norway but contributes to this
article solely as an independent researcher.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 19 May 2021
Revised 12 September 2021
Accepted 15 September 2021
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 78 No. 4, 2022
pp. 761-779
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-05-2021-0102
Despite the potential of art-related OD and linked open data (LOD), only a small
percentage of digital museum collections qualify as OD using a broad definition of the term.
Much museum-related research has then focussed on impediments to OD adoption,
emphasizing pathways towards it, and a range of macro through micro exogenous variables
that impact OD adoption. While important, supply-oriented research tends to overlook that
the museum only fulfils a specific role in a longer value chain between cultural object and end-
user, and that OD achieves societal value only through the interdependencies and feedback
generated by a range of systems and stakeholders, i.e. through actual use (Janssen et al.,2012 ).
With a modest number of quantitative studies on open museum data, there are few
qualitative international comparative studies (Estermann, 2014,2016), and little research on
the dynamics of complex macro factors such as legal frameworks, cultural policy and how the
latter is tied to institutional funding arrangements. Additionally, how museums track and
respond to their OD contribution remains relatively poorly understood (Sanderhoff, 2013;
Terras, 2015;Schmidt, 2018). Through a comparative case study, we address the need to
investigate the interdependencies between OD and art museum users, and the interaction
mechanisms of feedback within the digital information ecosystem where art museums
operate. In doing so, we ask: In forming their policy towards OD, how do art museums interact
with and respond to the OD ecosystems they are part of, comprising internal and external
components such as cultural policy, legal frameworks, user groups, and economic conditions
and incentives?
Contextualizing our inquiry, technical processes to adopt and advance OD are well
documented (Avila-Garzon, 2020;De Boer et al., 2013), as are the challenges faced. Gaps in
international legal frameworks hinder the simple open publication of heritage collections
(Wallace and Euler, 2020). A lack of awareness of the benefits of enabling semantic
connection of unstructured data available on the Internet (Avila-Garzon, 2020) has resulted in
a lethargic adoption in spite of expanding cultural policy directives. Further complications
emerge from uncertainties about terms such as OD, LOD and the semantic web (Rasmussen
Pennington and Cagnazzo, 2019), as well as numerous interpretations of “open”(Pomerantz
and Peek, 2016). A commonly cited definition is that “[o]pen means anyone can freely access,
use, modify, and share for any purpose (subject, at most, to requirements that preserve
provenance and openness)”. As such, OD is a technical method to enable data access, as well
as an epistemic stance that acknowledges the value of data reuse.
We begin by briefly reviewing existing studies of museum and heritage institution OD
adoption, with an emphasis on the suitability of an ecosystems approach for comparing the
informational dynamics impacting OD policy in three mid-sized European art museums.
Using research from the more developed open government data field, we propose five
ecosystem components for analysing the dynamics of three ecosystems which we define as
local museum centric, yet also connected to a larger international ecosystem. Following
analysis and comparison of the three ecosystems, we discuss key challenges to the
development of functioning and sustainable art museum OD ecosystems.
2. Literature
To position our study withinexisting research, we searched three databases (Scopus, Web of
Sciences and Science Direct) and the archives of the Museums and the Web conference for
qualitative studies of OD in museums. Existingresearch includes “single case studies”ofOD
and LOD adoption (e.g. De Boer et al., 2013) and the broader legal, ontological and technical
environmentin which a museum’s OD decisionsand policy are shaped (e.g. Szekelyet al., 2013).
“Multiple case studies”have examined how digital innovation evolves within selected
museums (e.g. Dupuy et al.,2015), and how political and social actors impact museum OD
practices(e.g. Teneketzis, 2020). Otherstudies have examined a range of challengesassociated
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