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The Sacrality of the Heritage Expert: Challenging the Authorized Heritage Discourse in the Digital Age

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T

HE

S

ACRALITY

OF

THE

H

ERITAGE

E

XPERT

CHALLENGING THE AUTHORIZED HERITAGE DISCOURSE IN

THE DIGITAL AGE

Roosmarijn de Groot

Student number 10143343 Master Cultural Heritage Studies Supervisor: prof. dr. R. Boast Second supervisor: dr. H. Ronnes

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University of Amsterdam December 1st 2015

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Table of contents

Preface...6

Introduction...8

1. Theoretical Framework...14

1.1 Digitalism and the creation of meaning...14

1.2 Heritage as a discourse...16

1.3 Forgetting and remembering...19

1.4 On the heritage expert...21

2. The National Library of the Netherlands: De Koninklijke Bibliotheek...24

2.1 Introduction...24

2.2 Background...24

2.3 Digitization at the National Library...26

2.3.1 Metamorfoze...28

2.3.2 The Memory of the Netherlands...29

2.4 Current projects...31

2.4.1 The Google Books Project...31

2.4.2 Delpher...32

2.4.3 Wikipedia...36

2.4.4 Linked Open Data...38

3. The National Museum of the Netherlands: Het Rijksmuseum...42

3.1 Introduction...42

3.2 Background...42

3.3 First digitization projects...43

3.3.1 The Google Art Project...45

3.4 Current projects...46 3.4.1 Rijksstudio...46 3.4.2 Rijksmuseum’s API...52 3.4.3 Accurator...53 Conclusion...56 Appendix...60 Literature...60 Websites...68

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Preface

In 2013, I started my master Heritage Studies with the ambition of saving old buildings and monuments from decay. During my studies, I came into contact with a whole other side of heritage: the political. Heritage, in essence, is subjective and is about remembering some narratives, whilst forgetting others. These power relations became my main area of interest.

From February until August 2014, I did an internship at the National Library of the Netherlands, where my interest for the digitization of heritage and the many questions surrounding it was raised. Heritage always seemed to be rooted in the idea of its

exceptionality and authenticity, and it seemed to me that this would drastically change in the digital age in which objects are reproduced and shared. Also, my colleagues at the department Collections – heritage experts – were faced with different problems that did not match their skillset. The library increasingly became an institute for computational information, instead of (book)historical expertise.

These observations sparkled my interest for digitization and the new kind of heritage, and the changing world in which heritage institutions had to find their way. During my orientation in the field, I found out that many discussions and researches stem from media studies, but the new developments were hardly studied from a critical heritage perspective.

In this thesis, I have combined the theoretical background that my master has provided me (Critical Heritage Studies) with the subject I came into contact with during my internship (digital practices). It is, in that sense, the capstone of my master studies.

I want to thank my supervisors prof. dr. Robin Boast and dr. Hanneke Ronnes for providing me with valuable feedback and motivating me when I needed it.

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Introduction

What is making the old temples crumble is not smaller temples, but it’s rather this kind of polytheism—you know, you make your own gods.1

Heritage institutions are facing tremendous changes in the digital age. The above statement was made by Paola Antonelli, a curator for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In an interview for the magazine the Atlantic, Antonelli discusses the relationship between the museum and the public in the digital age. She postulates that it was not Netflix that caused a problem to movie theatres, but YouTube. Everyone can shoot videos and share them online. Museums are now facing the same problem. Antonelli argues that the digital age makes the museum not only a laboratory for artists, but also for audiences. According to Antonelli, museums need to recognize the participatory nature of museum interaction and

experimentation in order to remain relevant.

While digital technologies developed, a debate erupted whether libraries would remain necessary in the digital age. If all information is available online, then why would we need libraries? All publications will be accessible from people’s homes. Even the object of preservation, the book, is in danger of disappearing in physical form, with developing technologies of E-books and E-readers. These changes have caused scholars and public commentators to ask the question whether libraries are becoming obsolete.2 The nature of

digital information that circulates online is ephemeral and interconnected, which makes it difficult for a centralized and hierarchical institution to preserve this kind of information. Information, and the relation of people to it, is changing radically.

People visit heritage institutions with their cameras, cell phones and iPads, documenting themselves in the space and exchanging this information with their family, friends and followers. This behaviour changes how we experience heritage. Heritage objects can now be adjusted, enlarged, cut out and coloured. These digital representations of heritage objects are multiplied and travel around the globe. Digital representations are therefore fundamentally different than heritage objects. After all, the nature of digital objects is their shareability and multiplicity – two characteristics that are contradictory to our idea of

1 As quoted in: Megan Garber, ‘The Most Modern Curator,’ in The Atlantic. July/August 2014, retrieved 20 August 2015.

2 For example Linda Silka and Joyce Rumery, ‘Are Libraries Necessary? Are Libraries Obsolete?’ in Maine

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heritage, which is based on uniqueness, authenticity, object value and authorized identities. Through the digitization of heritage materials, people not only have easier access to heritage, but they also come into contact with heritage artefacts and institutions more often and in different ways. These digital objects can potentially be shared and multiplied on social media websites and blogs, or simply send in an email. As a consequence, the role of cultural heritage in the processes of identity formation will drastically change, since the cultural past is more present than ever. Or, as Mattias Dahlström phrased it: ‘Digitization is a practice that shapes and reshapes our cultural heritage.’3

Since the 1990s, an increasing number of heritage institutions have begun to digitize their collections. Rooted by the computerization processes in the 1980s, libraries started experimenting with digitization early on.4 Today, digitization has become a standard practice

in institutions all over the world for most heritage institutions. Museums, libraries, archives and historical societies are all running digitization programs. Also, all kinds of materials are being turned into bits and bytes, from books to photographs, microfilms, paintings to whole exhibitions.

These relatively new developments raise a number of questions concerning the heritage practice. A major critic of the Western concept of heritage is Laurajane Smith. She argues that heritage is not an object, but a discourse between the state and certain

professionals designated by the state. These experts present one institutionalized perspective of the past, which focuses on the object itself instead of on the social histories the object represents, thereby excluding other interpretations.She calls this authorized perspective the Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD).5 The question central to this thesis is how the

proliferation of digital technologies is affecting power relations in the heritage practice. Will digitization change this hierarchical practice? To what extent have digital technologies already reshaped it? How do institutions and their publics interact around online heritage?

Some authors have argued that digitization will strengthen public participation and democratize heritage discourse.Susan Hazan, for example, argues that the digital museum opens up new possibilities to harness and to enact reciprocal, user-driven scenarios, as well as provide new opportunities for the remote visitor to be able to interact with the museum.6

3 Mattias Dahlström et al., ‘As We May Digitize: Institutions and Documents Reconfigured,’ in LIBER

Quarterly 21 3/4 (2012), 457.

4 Leslie Johnston, “Before You Were Born: We Were Digitizing Texts,” Library of Congress. Published 19 December 2012. Last accessed 20 November 2015.

5 Laurajane Smith, The Uses of Heritage (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 11.

6 Susan Hazan, ‘A Crisis for Authority: New Lamps for Old,’ in Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage: A

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Through electronic connectivity, she argues, remote visitors may also realise that the museum values their knowledge and is aware that they too have something of value to contribute. Quincy McCrary similarly argues that where heritage institutions used to focus on the conservation and preservation of heritage objects, these practices are now supplemented by the recognition of the social history and intangible traditions that these objects represent.7

Angelina Russo and Jerry Watkins notify a tension between the authority of modern heritage institutions and people who increasingly generate their own sense and meaning of objects on display. They argue that heritage institutions are losing the authority to define heritage and to decide what is collected, conserved, displayed or disposed of. According to Russo and Watkins, how heritage is viewed, experienced and interpreted is no longer defined by heritage institutions, ‘but is co-created by people in interaction with each other around the online and offline resources offered to them.’8

Others even go as far as to predict the end of the heritage professional and institution altogether. Eduardo Pérez Soler, for example, argues that because museums have resisted digital options too long, causing their functions on a societal level to be taken over by Google, YouTube, Flickr and other user-generated content platforms.9 These platforms have quickly

emerged as dominant repositories for digital objects and they actively try to redefine the idea of curating content. According to Pérez Soler, the web is ultimately a hypermuseum. It (possibly) contains all collections of objects and documents in the world, and users can rearrange these materials into new groupings and collections, eliminating the barriers between institutions. Museums then no longer have the exclusive capacity to preserve heritage and grant meaning to it. The logic of digital networks is contradictory with the hierarchical and centralized structures of heritage institutions. Pérez Soler further argues that museums will merely come to function as a point of reference for the information circulating the internet. They therefore have to consider their role in the hypermuseum and make changes ‘so

profound that they end up affecting their very essence.’10 In order for institutions to open up,

the attitudes towards their publics must change. Institutions should become aware of the fact that their users have become ‘produsers’, capable of active knowledge creation. Curators should get used to working with communities and individuals that are unfamiliar with the formal structures of the museum, archive or library. The construction of collections and the

7 Quincy McCrary. ‘The Political Nature of Cultural Heritage.’ LIBER Quarterly 20 (3/4), 2011, 361. 8 Angela Russo and Jerry Watkins, ‘Digital cultural communication: Audience and remediation,’ in Heritage

and Social Media. Understanding Heritage in a Participatory Culture, ed. E. Giaccardi. (London and New

York: Routledge, 2012), 145-157.

9 Eduardo Pérez Soler, ‘The Hypermuseum and Museums,’ in A*DESK Magazine #104. Retrieved 4 June 2015. 10 Pérez Soler, ‘The Hypermuseum and Museums.’

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discourses generated around them, will become the result of a co-created process of people from within the institution and people outside of it.

Heritage institutions have done little to access and utilize visitor’s information,

opinions and creative input. One of the reasons for the lack of reciprocal interactions between institutions and their publics is the reputation of the Internet. Emma Waterton notices that despite the omnipresent nature of the Internet in contemporary societies, it is limitedly reflected upon or adopted within heritage and museological methodology. She believes that the Internet could provide potential ways of finding voices for marginalized communities, but notices two problems: The Internet is dominated by participation from the middle and upper socio-economic classes and social interactions occurring online are perceived as ‘false, malleable and inauthentic.’11

In this thesis, the history and policy of digitization in two national institutions of the Netherlands are studied and compared. The first chapter lays the theoretical foundation of this thesis. This theoretical framework deals with terms such as digitalism, expert vs. layman, the Authorized Heritage Discourse and processes of memory and forgetting. These concepts are introduced in order to further analyse the selected case studies analysed in the following chapters.

We will first take a look at the National Library of the Netherlands. The National Library started digitizing its collections early on. They initiated several projects in

cooperation with other heritage institutions in the Netherlands, but also with Wikipedia or commercial partner Google. Some of the challenges of the National Library are to make all digitized publications visible, usable and trustworthy.

Subsequently, the Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands is discussed. The Rijksmuseum was late in developing a digitization program, but started digitizing

extensively during the closure of the museum from 2004 to 2014. They have received international praise for their efforts.

In those chapters, the following questions are asked: What are these heritage

institutions doing to adopt to the digital age? Are their functions being threatened? How are their roles changing? How are they trying to maintain their authority, or how are they empowering their visitors and users to create and share their own meanings? The source material used to construct a view of these institutions in the digital age consists of websites, annual reports, year plans and promotional material.

11 Emma Waterton and Laurajane Smith, ‘The recognition and misrecognition of community heritage,’ in

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It is important to note that this study does not present a full overview of developments of digital practices in the Netherlands. Rather, it focuses on two of the largest institutions that promote Dutch national heritage. These institutions differ enormously in the way they collect, order and present their collections, and how they understand their purpose. They are,

however, facing the same challenges as the collections they preserve become part of larger networks of knowledge.

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1. Theoretical Framework

1.1 Digitalism and the creation of meaning

The condition of living in a digital culture is described by the term digitalism. In 1995, Nicolas Negroponté already used the concept in his book Being Digital, which was about digital technologies and their possible futures.12 He predicted that within five years, the

passive old media would be replaced by interactive new media.

The term digitalism is sometimes confusingly used, since it has several meanings depending on the context.13 In this thesis, the term refers to the ‘digitalization’ of society: the

ubiquitous uptake of digital devices, extensively used and regarded as normal by most people, especially younger people who have not experienced a non-digital society. While older generations have learned to use technology as a functional tool, and continue to learn and accept new technologies, the younger generations grew up not knowing anything different than a connected world.14 A similar argument could be made for the generation of the

beginning of the 20th century, who grew up with connectivity, albeit a different technology. At

the moment, smartphones dominate most cultures, but we can expect multiplication of digital aspects in our everyday possessions, such as glasses (think of Google Glasses), self-driving cars, clothing and works of art.

Although the development of open interactivity and free access is not going as fast as Negroponté predicted, digitalism has swiftly toppled other industries and economic models in the information and entertainment field. The many possibilities of streaming or downloading music, such as Spotify and iTunes have caused a dramatic decline in the number of record stores and the amount of CD’s sold and produced around the globe.15 The same goes for video

stores and DVDs, which have been replaced by streaming websites such as Netflix and Popcorn Time. It is unlikely that this development will stop. The public, especially the

younger generations, has come to expect that everything is available online, and often for free. As opposed to the medium of television, the internet would no longer be a receptive medium of information, but invite the user to more active and more creative uses. Consumers would transform into active participants, contributing to the content of media and its

12 See Jonathan P. Bowen and Tula Giannini, ‘Digitalism: The New Realism?’ Paper adapted from the

presentation at the Electronic Visualization and the Arts Conference, London, 8 – 10 July 2014. Last accessed 27 November 2015, 326.

13 For different meanings, see Bowen and Giannini, 325-326.

14 J. Chung et al., Museums & Society 2034: Trends and Potential Futures. Center for the Future of Museums, an initiative of the American Association of Museums. December 2008. Last accessed 20 November 2015. 15 These are the legal options; not even the numerous illegal ways of downloading through torrents.

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circulation. Through this activity, a new culture would develop, namely a participatory culture. In this culture, the emotional involvement in the use of a medium would be stronger than in the receptive culture of the television age.16 The shift is therefore spoken of in terms of

one that empowers the user. In participatory culture, ‘young people creatively respond to a plethora of electronic signals and cultural commodities in ways that surprise their makers, finding meanings and identities never meant to be there and defying simple nostrums that bewail the manipulation or passivity of “consumers.”’17

Consequently, digitalism has changed the relationship of users of information from being information receivers to being full participants in the information process. Before, users were the ones seeking and receiving information. Now, users create content and fully

participate in the publication and communication of information on the Web.18 There is even

more user-generated content than publishers’ content on the Internet. Content platforms such as Wikipedia or personal blogs are rapidly gaining authority. Therefore, new roles for

individual expression are established, empowered by digital tools and technology.19

Technology could also change the relationship between cultural institutions and their publics. Liu and Bowen argue that the creation of information and knowledge is already implicit between institutions and individuals. Museums, libraries and archives publish their collections online, and shape that communication of content through descriptions, metadata and web design. They argue that user communities take this content to other platforms, such as Twitter and Wikipedia, where they create, gather and share information, generating community discussion and interaction.20 These communities of practice are not necessarily

within the vicinity of the institution. In fact, digital information reaches global audiences who can tweet and blog about the institution’s collections, potentially communicating new

information.21

Community discussion and interaction can not only stem from the online sources of the heritage institution: The offline exhibitions can also be taken into digital space by its visitors. Audiences visit the museum with their digital tools, such as their smartphone or tablet, and capture and curate information as ‘digital take-away’. Visitors want to record their

16 Jos de Haan, De trage acceptatie van snelle media (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010), 20. 17 Paul Willis, ‘Soldiers of Modernity: The Dialectics of Cultural Consumption and the 21st-Century School,’

Harvard Educational Review 73(3) (2003), 392.

18 Jonathan P. Bowen and Tula Giannini, ‘Digitalism: The New Realism?’ 328.

19 Tula Giannini, ‘Information Receiving, a Primary Mode of the Information Process,’ in Proceedings of the 61st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science – Information Access in the Global Information Economy. Information Today (1999), 362–371.

20 Alison Hsiang-Yi Liu and Jonathan P. Bowen, ‘Creating online collaborative environments for museums: A case study of a museum wiki,’ in International Journal of Web Based Communities, 7(4) (2011), 407-428. 21 Jonathan P. Bowen and Tula Giannini, ‘Digitalism: The New Realism,’ 328.

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personalized experience, either as an aid for remembering or to share their experience with others. These digital objects, whether they are photos, videos or blogs, can be shared on the Internet and used to create new works.

Digitality, in short, could open up the heritage practice for new participants in the authorized discourse and strengthen the relationship between the institutions and its publics. Yet, the question remains whether these potentials are being realized. In the following section, the nature of the heritage practice is described as one that is hierarchical and based on expert opinion. This contrasts with the nature of digital information, which is participatory and interactive. In digitality, ‘the roles of information professionals and users resonate in an interdependent system tied to digital information sharing, showing, seeing, saying, telling, capturing, curating, and connecting.’22 How can digitality change this hierarchical heritage

practice?

1.2 Heritage as a discourse

In The Uses of Heritage, Laurajane Smith declares that ‘[t]here is, really, no such thing as heritage.’23 She argues that the value (or the significance) of heritage is not intrinsic to the

heritage object, but culturally ascribed to it and continually re-evaluated. Therefore, heritage is not a material artefact, but a discursive practice. It can be utilized by different interest-groups and individuals with different objectives, with varying degrees of legitimacy.

However, the official representation of heritage, which Smith calls the Authorized Heritage Discourse, is made up of fixed actors: heritage institutions, heritage experts and the state. These actors have developed a variety of strategies to exclude the general public from participating in the official discourse. For example, the laws and international charters that govern heritage designate certain professionals as heritage experts, thereby assigning them as legitimate spokespeople for a(n) (inter)national past.24These experts promote the heritage of

elite social classes and emphasize a view of heritage the public can only engage with passively.25 Additionally, the AHD strips an object or practice from its original meaning or

significance and gives it a set of newly created associations. It does so by removing the heritage object, place or practice from its historical context, pressuring the visitor to view it as a symbol representing a national character, a particular historic period or a particular building type.

Heritage is always about the regulation and negotiation of the multiplicity of meaning

22 Ibid., 329.

23 Laurajane Smith, The Uses of Heritage, 11.

24 Rodney Harrison, Heritage: Critical Approaches (London: Routledge, 2011), 28. 25 Ibid., 28.

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in the past, and it is about the mediation of politics of identity, deciding what social groups belong and which are excluded. Heritage is both inclusive and exclusive, but it is especially exclusive in case of national heritage. Smith notices that there is always a sense of deep commemoration or worship in the performances of remembering the past, and especially in national narratives. National heritage ignores regional differences, negative histories, conflicting narratives and multiculturalism.

She further argues that the Authorized Heritage Discourse ‘promotes a consensus approach to history, smoothing over conflict and social indifference.26 It focuses on

conservative and distinctly Western social messages. Through the AHD, particular visions of nationhood are established. Andrea Witcomb articulated this idea strongly when she argued that libraries and museums are ideological institutions that articulate the hegemony of the dominant culture behind its closed doors. Moreover, political discourses of power flow through them ‘inoculating bourgeois civic values that serve the needs of the emerging nation-state and the dominant interest within it.’27

Digital cultural heritage is also part of the Authorized Heritage Discourse. Quincy McCrary argues that the same issues of control of ideology, vocabulary and authenticity that are at play in physical heritage preservation, are present in the preservation of digital heritage. Digital cultural heritage is therefore political in nature: ‘the social nature of information, its relationship to data and knowledge, and its ability to be shaped, organized, and well-managed is what makes it political. Any political agenda that sets in motion and/or funds digitization inherits mixed perspectives.’28

Digital heritage objects can be born digital, such as 3D artworks, web pages, online databases and online journals. Although the born digital heritage object is different in nature, since it is multiple, it is at the same time the original object. Digitized heritage objects

function differently in the heritage discourse: they are representations of the heritage object, and in that sense, they are a direct reference.For these representations, similar rules apply: they are authorized by an institution; they are the intellectual property of the maker or the preserving institution of the physical object; they are described, catalogued and interpreted and they need to be preserved sustainably.

It is not only institutions that digitize and interpret digital heritage objects. When visiting the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, for example, the view to the object is almost taken away

26 Smith, Heritage, 4.

27 As quoted in Quincy McCrary. ‘The Political Nature of Cultural Heritage,’ 363. 28 McCrary, 357.

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by the sea of smartphones, digital cameras and tablets of visitors that try to capture their visit.29 All the photos taken by visitors, earlier referred to as digital take-away, are digital

representations. Some are rather unrecognizable from the original painting. Googling the Mona Lisa generates differing results in sizes, colours, composition, let alone the millions of parodies or forgeries made of this painting (Mona Lisa with a duckface, Mona Lisa as Mr. Bean, Mona Lisa made from Lego, or Mona Lisa on canvas.) These images vary in degrees of representability. Heritage institutions want to present the ‘true’ digital representation, and have developed measures to prove the authenticity and integrity of digital objects.30

Born digital objects and digital representations are both different from physical ones, in the sense that they can be shared and multiplied. Of course, photographs were always multiple, and so music and etches too. However, the scale at which digital objects travel and multiply is unprecedented.

UNESCO formulated a guideline for the preservation of digital cultural heritage. UNESCO argues that since digital heritage ‘consists of unique resources of human knowledge’ that are valuable and significant, it needs to be ‘protected and preserved for current and future generations.’31 Digital heritage is at risk of being lost, reasons include the

temporary nature of digital objects, changing technological standards, lack of legislation, ‘responsibilities and methods for maintenance and preservation’ and ‘[a]ttitudinal change has fallen behind technological change.’32

Digital evolution has been too rapid and costly for governments and institutions to develop timely and informed preservation strategies. The threat to the economic, social, intellectual and cultural potential of the heritage – the building blocks of the future – has not been fully grasped.33

Digital heritage objects, in short, are either born digital or they are representations of a physical heritage object. Heritage institutions work to authorize their digitized heritage objects, making those representations the ones that need sustainable preservation. These digital representations are treated the same as physical heritage objects, in the ways they are selected, ordered, preserved and interpreted, making them part of the AHD.

29 Bowen and Giannini, ‘Digitalism,’ 328.

30 The ways in which heritage institutions can do this is widely discussed in the first thematic issue of the DigiCult magazine: Guntram Geser et al., ‘Integrity and Authenticity of Digital Cultural Heritage Objects,’

DigiCult Magazine Thematic Issue 1 (2002), unnumbered.

31 ‘Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage,’ UNESCO.org. Published 15 October 2015. Last accessed 26 November 2015.

32 ‘Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage.’ 33 Ibid.

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1.3 Forgetting and remembering

The efforts of the masses have converted the web into a magnificent hybrid that takes the form of an archive and, at the same time, a museum.34

From the eighteenth century onwards, museums, libraries and archives have been at the core of the creation of social memory. The common denominator of these heritage institutions is that they select, order, preserve and often interpret artefacts, allowing the formation of a canon. In ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identities’ Aleida Assman uses the concepts of the canon and the archive to show that there are two ways of remembering and forgetting: an active and a passive one. Assman’s distinctions of active and passive remembering and forgetting can serve as a thinking model to understand the ways in which cultural memory is collectively shaped by users and institutions in the digital age. Also, it can highlight some of the differences and similarities between museums, archives and libraries.

Aleida Assman observed that memory institutions are crucial to the structuring of the relationship between remembering and forgetting in society.35 Their practices of selecting,

ordering and preserving, therefore, are instrumental in the development of social identities.36

She states that there are two ways of remembering: an active and a passive one. Institutions of active memory preserve the past as present. A museum, for instance, organizes exhibitions with its most prestigious or representative artworks. In this way, visitors engage with the artworks in the present, with each representation seen from the perspective of the present. This form of active remembering is what Assman calls the canon. A key aspect of the canon is that the continuous sustainment of its relevance is promoted through exhibitions, education and storytelling.

A museum, however, also has a depot stuffed with other paintings and objects that did not meet the requirements of the exhibition. In the depot, the past is preserved as past. This passively stored memory forms the archive. These items may be rediscovered at any time in the future. They are not unmediated, but ‘they are de-contextualized and disconnected from their former frames which had authorized them or determined their meaning.’37 They can be

34 Pérez Soler, ‘The Hypermuseum and Museums.’

35 Aleida Assman, ‘Canon and Archive,’ in Media and Cultural Memory: An International and

Interdisciplinary Handbook, ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter,

2008), 97–109.

36 Atilla Marton, ‘Social memory and the digital domain: The canonization of digital cultural artefacts,’ Paper presented at the 27th European Group for Organizational Studies colloquium (EGOS), 6-9 July 2011,

Gothenburg, Sweden.

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re-discovered, reinterpreted and re-contextualised at any point.

Assman argues that libraries and archives are institutions that preserve the past as past, in other words, institutions of passive memory. However, these institutions also promote a canon, by housing exhibitions, displaying some books or documents in sight or as a

collection. Also, heritage artefacts stored in archives and magazines are never fully decontextualized. In the catalogue, the objects are already described (ergo interpreted) by heritage experts, steering the interpretation of users.

The active form of forgetting lies in intentional acts of destroying and trashing. In that case, records of certain events are wiped out. The passive form of cultural forgetting is related to non-intentional acts such as losing, hiding, dispersing, neglecting or abandoning. In these cases the objects are not materially destroyed, but they (temporarily) fall out of the frames of attention, valuation, and use.’38 By intentional or unintentional forgetting, different members

of society do not have their heritage represented.

Digital technologies fundamentally restructure the relationship between forgetting and remembering. Earlier, several scholars predicted that in the digital age, heritage institutions will no longer define what heritage is and how it is experienced. Now, users have platforms where they can participate in heritage discourses, whether these platforms are provided by the institution or not. Additionally, the museum depot is no longer an archive only accessible by heritage experts, but these objects are now retrievable online, and can be used by anyone with internet connection (depending on the intellectual property rights). Before, this right was exclusive to researchers who were granted access to the depots.39

Pérez Soler argued that the Internet functioned as both a hypermuseum as an archive of archives:

The web is, simultaneously, both a powerful storage device, that conserves an enormous variety of man-made documents, and an exhibition space, where it is possible to contemplate an immense catalogue of human creations. So, just as Jesús Carillo suggests, digital communication networks have made the blind machinery of the traditional archive merge with the apparatus of visibility characteristic of museum institutions.40

38 Assman, 97–98.

39 This does not mean that it becomes part of the canon, since the weight ascribed to the meaning is dependent on the expertise and therefore, authority of the one that gave it. For libraries, objects in the archive were already consultable, digitization merely makes consultation easier.

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The Internet consists of constantly growing and changing materials, ranging from institutional databases to registers and collections spontaneously made by individuals, and accumulated by ‘search-engine spiders’.41 It gives both institutions and individuals the possibility to give

meaning to the accumulated objects. For this reason, Pérez Soler named the web a ‘visibilty machine.’42 However, in this partially random ordering, lies a danger too.

Atilla Marton uses Assman’s notions of canon and archive to develop the theme of transversal forgetting, a cyclical process of forgetting-as-data which transverses the boundaries between libraries, archives and museums. He argues that the rise of the internet and its services, in which much of our cultural heritage is migrated to or already born into the digital domain, results in ‘a new breed of cultural artifact that is ephemeral, networked and dependent on computational operations.’43 Heritage artifacts are part of a larger information

environment and their findability is predominantly provided by algorithmic operations of search engines. These search engines work differently from librarians, archivists and curators, as they bring a new rationale for organizing documents.

Transversal forgetting is a form of passive forgetting, but it is not the only form of forgetting that is a risk in digitization. Passive forgetting can happen in several ways. For example, when some works are not digitized, they fall out of the frame of attention. They could be used less, especially when younger generations expect that everything is online.

UNESCO recognized the other possibilities of passive forgetting. In the digital

domain, technical standards are rapidly changing. A telling example is that of the floppy disk, a magnetic disk storage medium that are no longer readable by most computers. Also, web pages disappear as quickly as they were created, leaving the hyperlinked pages with unsteady URLs and the dreaded 404 Error.

1.4 On the heritage expert

In the Authoritative Heritage Discourse, different levels of expertise are ignored.Besides the heritage professional and the layman, there are other well-informed people, amongst whom are amateur scientists and retired professionals.44 The definition of expertise, in other words,

is often far too narrow. Source communities are left out of this definition, while these are the communities from which the objects originated. They have knowledge of the use and

meanings of the object. These meanings are equally, if not more important, than the art

41 Ibid. 42 Ibid.

43 Marton, ‘Social memory and the digital domain,’ 2.

44 H. Wubs and Frank Huysmans, Klik naar het verleden; een onderzoek naar gebruikers van digitaal erfgoed:

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historical record of an object. The definition of expertise must therefore include the different engagements, uses and the deep understanding and differing worldviews of the objects that these people and communities have.45

Sharon Macdonald writes that museum professionals have long acknowledged that their discourse and descriptions are only one interpretation that does not fully account for the diversity of possible perspectives.46 Heritage professionals have for some time been seeking

ways to take other narratives into account. By inviting communities to participate in for example, panel discussions and curatorial teams, institutions have sought ways to create further community engagement. However, these solutions only last as long as the exhibition does and do not create the long-term engagement that the projects aim for.

In ‘Digital Museums and Diverse Cultural Knowledges: Moving Past the Traditional Catalog’, Ramesh Srinivasan and others argue that although museums are trying to provide multiple narratives, the catalogue remains the sole domain of the expert. Through several case-studies, the writers show possibilities of the accommodation of multiple voices and perspectives in the practices of collection documentation through social technologies,

resolving the underlying contradiction of the privileged account of the museum expert versus distributed social technology practices.

This is not to say that the museum professional does not have a valuable contribution. Instead, the writers argue that expert communities must be formed, made up of for example archaeologists, curators, cultural preservationists and source communities who interact around the objects.Museums, they argue, are primarily perceived as educational instruments. They should not present readily interpreted objects, but generate knowledge discursively through participation in conversation with others.47

Jennifer Conrady showed that other expert communities can add information. In her master thesis ‘A crowdsourcing project with a “predefined crowd”’, Conrady ran a pilot study in which she let secondary school pupils participate in digital heritage during their history classes.48 She found that the advantages of using students for contextualisation are that the

education material is enriched with concrete examples, students generate deep knowledge by searching for information, it is a motivating and authentic form of learning in which students create a sense of authorship. Also, it helps the heritage institutions and other Internet users to

45 Ramesh Srinivasan et al., ‘Digital Museums and Diverse Cultural Knowledges: Moving Past the Traditional Catalog,’ in The Information Society, 25 (2008), 267.

46 As quoted in Srinivasan et al., 265. 47 Srinivasan et al., 266.

48 Jennifer Conrady, ‘A crowdsourcing project with a ‘predefined crowd’?’ Master thesis, Leiden University, Book and Digital Media Studies, 2012.

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contextualise objects. Some conditions are that the students have the right information skills, for example to judge sources on their trustworthiness and that they are motivated. Institutions will also have to check the quality of the added content, to a higher degree as with the use of adult volunteers or experts in crowdsourcing. When these conditions are met, letting students help contextualising digital heritage objects can work in advantage for both the institution as well as the students.

Despite the many arguments for a pluralistic approach of museum interpretation and presentation, the catalogue of the museum has remained within the hands of museum experts. Fields of information are standardized, descriptions are controlled and there are

terminological thesauri, causing the core instrumental meanings of museum objects to be reduced in service of universal access.49 Museum professionals are even judged by the fact

whether or not they can systematically classify and interpret objects or, rather, they are judged on their ability to manage according to the proscriptions of the dominant discourse. It is seen as fundamental to the museum’s institutional mission that ‘[t]hrough classification, control of expert accounts, publication, collecting practices, and even exhibition, museums have become the filter through which such accounts can or cannot, associate themselves with the object.’50

49 Srinivasan et al., 268. 50 Ibid.

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2. The National Library of the Netherlands: De Koninklijke Bibliotheek

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the digitization projects of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the national library of the Netherlands, are discussed and analysed. First, a short history of the library as an

institution is provided, followed by an overview of early digitization projects that serve as a background for understanding contemporary objectives of the library. Consequently,

important current projects and future plans are examined to see how the Koninklijke Bibliotheek deals with the changing environment in which they operate.

2.2 Background

The Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB) is the national library of the Netherlands. Is was founded by the representatives of the Batavian Republic in 1798 with the mission to collect all printed national heritage. A national library was deemed necessary for the preservation of literary national heritage that was threatened by the revolution. In 1906, Louis Napoleon changed the name to the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library).51

The library of Stadholder William V, who fled to contemporary Germany after the revolution, constituted the basis for the collection. According to the first catalogue in 1800, the KB possessed over five thousand books and magazines. The collection grew rapidly and the library moved to the Mauritshuis in The Hague in 1820. A year later, the Mauritshuis turned out to be too small already. In the meantime, the Kingdom of the Netherlands was founded under the rule of William I. He decided to move the library to the Lange Voorhout. The library was located on this site until the move to the current building in 1982.

In the course of the nineteenth and twentieth century, the collection of the library grew further through the acquisition of collections and separate rare publications, gifts and loans. The KB also acquired books and publications for the members of Parliament. In these two centuries, the KB continuously developed into a general scientific institution. Especially during the cabinets of Thorbecke (1849 – 1872), the library became oriented on the scientific domain.52 In Thorbecke’s opinion, a library was first and foremost a social institution and

therefore, it had to acquire the latest writings, mainly focused on state, law, history and

51 P.W. Klein and M.A.V. Klein-Meijer, De wereld van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek 1798 – 1998. Van zakelijke

institutie tot culturele onderneming (Amsterdam: Oorschot, 1998), 34.

52 ‘Johan Rudolph Thorbecke.’ Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Last edited 1 November 2015. Last Accessed 20 November 2015.

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physics.53 From the beginning of the twentieth century, when several branches of science

evolved, the scientific collection was limited to the areas of the humanities and social sciences.

The collection development from before 1974 largely remained dependent on occasional flukes in the form of donations, loans or bequests. These acquisitions were sometimes the motivation for structural expansion of a certain collection. A series of systematically traced special collections were added to the library’s collection this way, ranging from children’s books, occult works, culinary works, sport and music books to the world’s largest collection of chess and checkers books.54 The collection policy was quite

random until the depot was instated in 1974. From that year onwards, the KB receives one copy of every publication (book, magazine or newspaper) that appears in the Netherlands.55

The Koninklijke Bibliotheek officially became the national library of the Netherlands in 1982, the year the library was moved to its current building. From then on, it became library’s ambition and lawful task to gather all publications that were published in, about or from the Netherlands or in or translated from Dutch and to make them available for everyone, anywhere. 56 The KB now houses 6 million items in its collection, covering an area 110

kilometres.57

The library was renovated in 1998, to facilitate the addition of computers to the reading rooms. Also, ‘the reading room of the Netherlands’ was added, which is chronologically

structured from the Middle Ages to contemporary culture. In the middle, four thematic pavilions are added with themes from Dutch history such as the Royal family, migration, colonialism and religion in the Netherlands. These thematic bookshelves, the special collections and the

exhibition spaces (plus cooperation with Meermanno, Museum of the Book) show that the library is in fact also a space of active memory.

53 L. Brummel, Geschiedenis der Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Leiden: Slijthoff, 1939), 134. 54 P.W. Klein and M.A.V. Klein-Meijer, De wereld van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 83.

55 The addition of publications to the Depot of Dutch publications is done on a voluntary basis: publishers can choose whether they supply one copy to the National Library or not. It is therefore not a dépôt legal such as in France and Belgium, where it is legally obligated to donate one copy to the National Library. However, the Depot does have a high coverage, ranging from 85 to 90% in the last decade. Arno Kuipers, ‘De signatuur van de hel,’ in Pornografie van de Nederlandse literatuur, ed. Rick van Driel and Joost Honings (Amsterdam: Nijgh en Van Ditmar, 2012), 176-192.

56 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Collectieplan 2010 – 2013: Fysiek en digitaal integraal (Den Haag: De Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 2010), 4.

57 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, ‘KB in kort bestek,’ Koninklijke Bibliotheek: National Library of the Netherlands. Retrieved 6 May 2015.

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2.1 Photo of the reading room of the Netherlands in the new KB building.58

The KB is an independent governing body, financed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. As an independent body, the KB carries out government tasks, but does not fall under direct supervision of the Ministry. As opposed to other heritage institutions in the Netherlands that fall under the pillar of ‘Culture’, the KB and other libraries are part of the pillar of

‘Science’.59 This is relevant to keep in mind, because funding works differently for the KB than

for the Rijksmuseum. Museums are subsidized per visitor, without needing to account for the action of the visitors within their spaces. Also, libraries have not (yet) been under severe

government cuts, such as the large-scale reform and redistribution of subsidies carried out by the Dutch government in 2011.60

2.3 Digitization at the National Library

The foundation for contemporary digitization practices in the National Library was already laid during the computerization processes in the eighties. All libraries in the Netherlands adopted the same standard for library processes, based on co-operative cataloguing. The project began in 1969 and was a collaboration between the National Library and the university libraries of Groningen, Nijmegen, Utrecht, Leiden and the Free University of Amsterdam. It resulted in the launch of the Gemeenschappelijk Geautomatiseerd

Catalogiseersysteem (abbreviated to GGC, translatable to Mutual Computerized Cataloguing

58 Photo of the reading room of the Netherlands in the new KB building. ‘Kampstaal project Depot Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Kampstaal. Last accessed 28 November 2015.

59 L.C. Brinkman, Bestuursreglement van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Den Haag, 2010), 1.

60 Harmen Bockma, ‘Bezuinigingen cultuur: hardste klap bij theater en beeldende kunst,’ in De Volkskrant. Published 10 June 2011. Last accessed 20 November 2015.

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System) in 1979. The system formed the groundwork for later developments such as local library modules for loans and acquisitions (1982), a local catalogue Openbare Publieks Catalogus (Public Catalogue, 1984) and the Nederlandse Centrale Catalogus (Dutch Central Catalogue, 1986).61

The National Library of the Netherlands recognized the possibilities of the Internet early on. In 1993, the National Library launched its website and a year after, their public catalogue was consultable online.62 Library users, or at least, those in possession of a personal

computer, could from then on browse and request books from their homes through the public catalogue. Although this is not digitization in the sense of turning analogue data into digital, the metadata of library material became available in digital form through these developments.

The National Library was one of the first libraries worldwide to present its collection online. In 1995, the library presented the digital images of the overview of most important pieces of the collection that had appeared as a publication and a CD-ROM earlier. The book was called Hundred highlights from the National Library and consists of visually attractive collection pieces that were meant to appeal to a large public.63 From then on, more old

manuscripts, incunabula and bibliophilic publications were digitized and made available as browse books on the website of the National Library. The scans made were often of the highest quality, making it possible to zoom in on the smallest details. The browse books were accompanied by extensive descriptions made by the collection specialists.

In the annual report of 1996, the wish to make a structured plan for the digitization of collections is first articulated.64 The motivation for the digitization was to improve the access

to collections, while at the same time preserving of them. In the years to come, a number of digitization projects followed, such as the digitization of two atlases from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and the British Library in 1997 – 1998 and the project Illustrated Incunabula Short Title Catalogue that appeared on CD-ROM. In 1999, the library collaborated with the Rijksmuseum to make a Digital Historical Atlas (now part of The Memory of the Netherlands, which will be discussed later). That same year, the KB made plans with Museum Meermanno to digitize all illuminated manuscripts. The digitization of manuscripts happened two years later and resulted in the website Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts.65

61 The history of digitization in the National Library is widely described by dr. Marieke van Delft in Van

Wiegendruk naar World Wide Web: Bijzondere collecties en de vele geschiedenissen van het gedrukte boek,

(Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2015). The following subchapter is largely based on her research. 62 Marieke van Delft, Van Wiegendruk naar World Wide Web, 298.

63 This web exposition can be retrieved online on kb.nl/webexpositie

64 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Beleidsplan 1996 – 1997, (Den Haag: De Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1996), 21. 65 Van Delft, Van Wiegendruk tot World Wide Web, 281.

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Digitization became a main priority for the National Library in the policy period 1998 – 2001.66 Parts of the collection were digitized and made available through the KB-network

service in favour of a greater accessibility of Dutch cultural heritage and the conservation of the original documents. From those year onwards, the first large-scale digitization projects were initiated. First of these was the Dutch parliamentary papers (the project was named Staten-Generaal Digitaal), by order of the Dutch House of Representatives. All treatises and reports of the Upper Chamber and House of Representatives between 1814 and 1995 were digitized. Another project that followed soon was the Databank of Daily Digital Newspapers, in which 350.000 pages of newspapers between 1910 and 1945 were digitized and integrated into the Historical Newspaper Website. In 2006, eight million pages of Dutch papers from 1618 onwards were digitized.67

Another project was Early Dutch Books online, in which more than two million pages from the special collections of the National Library and the university libraries of Amsterdam and Leiden (1780 –1800) were digitized. The digital collection consists of all sorts of books ranging from Dutch history, to theology, politics, plants, animals, cooking, fashion, atlases and almanac and popular printing.

2.3.1 Metamorfoze

In 1991, a research was conducted to map the gravity of the problem with decaying library collections from the nineteenth and twentieth century. These books, papers and magazines printed between 1840 and 1950 were often printed on cheap paper, resulting in problems such as ink corrosion and paper decay. The amount of publications affected appeared too large to save. The Koninklijke Bibliotheek presented a scenario in 1995 to select material that could be considered for rescue within a national conservation program (1997 – 2000).

In 2000 Metamorfoze was initiated. Metamorfoze began microfilming material from several libraries and archives. The material that was enlisted for selection had to be from Dutch origins, present in libraries or archives with a conservational function and printed between 1840 and 1950. A priority was given to coherent literary collections and there was a separate trajectory for newspapers. By 2007, technology and expertise on digitization had increased. In that year, Metamorfoze went from ‘preservation microfilming’ to ‘preservation imaging’ to make high-quality digital surrogates from vulnerable analogue material.68

66 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Beleidsplan 1998 – 2001, (Den Haag: De Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1998) 10. 67 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, ‘Digitization at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek: backgrounds and documentation,’

Koninklijke Bibliotheek: National Library of the Netherlands. Last accessed 15 November 2015.

68 Metamorfoze, ‘Geschiedenis.’ Metamorfoze: Nationaal Programma voor het Behoud van het Papieren

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Metamorfoze is financed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. It consults and supports institutions that participate in Metamorfoze. The Bureau, housed in the National Library, also encourages research, keeps contacts with national and international organisations and spreads information on preservation imaging. Commissions of experts judge the project applications and advise on the allotment of subsidies.69

The motivation for digitization in Metamorfoze is the long-term preservation of national cultural heritage. This is one motivation of digitization for the National Library: if less people use the physical book, it will be damaged less. Another reason for digitizing is to have another platform for the presentation of the collection, illustrated in the next subchapter. 2.3.2 The Memory of the Netherlands

After a period of experimentation, heritage institution started working together more intensively and structurally. Inspired by the website American Memory of the Library of Congress, the National Library ventured to develop the website The Memory of the Netherlands (Het Geheugen van Nederland).70 Its goal was to build a national digital

collection with cultural collections from or about the Netherlands, coming from all different types of heritage institutions such as (audio-visual) archives, libraries and museums. The program was funded by the Dutch ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the first collections were digitized in the year 2000. The amount of collections from a variety of institutions is numerous. The various collections are centred around themes, which are developed and presented by experts belonging to the institutions. Among the themes are Street songs (2002: National Library and Meertens Instituut), Atlantic World (2003: National Library and the Library of Congress) and War Posters (National Library and NIOD instituut voor oorlogs-, holocaust- en genocidestudies).71 Previous collections that had their own

websites were also integrated in the Memory of the Netherlands, such the earlier example of the Digital Historical Atlas. The Memory of the Netherlands now hosts 133 collections from a hundred institutions. Contributing institutions range from international and national libraries, historical centres, regional archives to ethnographic museums and more.72

The funding for the Memory of the Netherlands came to an end in 2011 due to the enormous budget cuts in the cultural field by the Dutch government. The website is

maintained, but no new collections are added. Only those collections that were already in the

69 Metamorfoze, ‘Geschiedenis.’

70 ‘Over het Geheugen: Beeldbank het Geheugen van Nederland,’ Geheugen van Nederland. Last accessed 15 November 2015.

71 ‘Over het Geheugen,’ Geheugen van Nederland. 72 Ibid.

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pipeline were finished. Information on the digitized objects on the website is no longer updated or corrected by the institutions.73 Unfortunately, this shows how institutions are

controlled by the state. They are dependent on what political parties are in office, and much progress can be destroyed by cutting small amounts of money.

The National Library intends to transfer all text documents on the Memory of the Netherlands to their platform Delpher.74 In preparation for the transfer, the gravity of the

problem of metadata came to light. In the Memory of the Netherlands, the contributing institutions were responsible for the descriptions of the objects. This caused differences in transcriptions: where one institution would date an object as ‘beginning of the 19th century’,

another institution would date it 1800 – 1850, and another would write 1825. Also, the metadata is full of name variations (pseudonyms, full names or abbreviated) and spelling or typing mistakes. The correction of the metadata can only be done by the institution and would be a time-consuming and expensive task. The library has not yet made the decision whether to correct these metadata-mistakes, which makes the use of the publications difficult.

The rather extensive methods of digitization, described in the two projects, is referred to as boutique digitization: attractive objects are selected and described by the experts of the institutions.75 It is therefore a quite traditional way of presenting heritage in which the expert

informs the user about the objects. There are no options for the users to interact with the website, for example by leaving comments or adding and editing content. Instead, heritage experts belonging to the contributing institution describe the collection as a whole, the single objects are accompanied by a standardized description concerning information about origin, date and material.

The first period of digitization at the National Library consisted of experimental projects or programs, with differing motivations for digitization. The beginning of the twenty-first century saw the emergence of the twenty-first large-scale digitization projects, such as the Dutch parliamentary papers. In these projects, large quantities of originals were scanned

systematically, were converted into machine-text and provided with metadata. The motivation for mass digitization was offering online access to integral parts of the collections. Later, digitization became an integral part of the National Library. By not only focusing on quality,

73 The Memory of the Netherlands is sometimes mockingly referred to as Memory Loss of the Netherlands. See Edwin Klein, ‘Van “oud” geheugen naar digitaal brein: massadigitalisering in de praktijk,’ NIOD. Last edited 26 October 2011. Last accessed 21 November 2015.

74 Martijn Laan, ‘Positionering Geheugen van Nederland 2015-2020.’ KB Intranet. October 2014. Last accessed 29 November 2015.

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but also on speed, the cost per page was reduced greatly. It, unfortunately, also caused immense problems in metadata and ultimately, the findability and usability of the material. 2.4 Current projects

In the policy plan of 2010 – 2013, the KB made digitizing all Dutch books, newspapers and magazines from 1470 onwards one of its primary goals.76 They are therefore not only working

on the digitization of their own collections, but are also planning to make the print collections of other institutions available. In order to achieve this, the library has started the project Library Collections Networked (Bibliotheekcollecties in het Netwerk) to create an inventory of all digital collections in all public and university libraries, and the libraries of other institutions.77 In the end, they intend to make all materials available on their online platform

Delpher. They are also working together with other Dutch cultural institutions in the National Coalition of Digital Sustainability, in order to ensure the preservation of the digitized

materials for the future, and to educate other cultural institutions in this subject.78

2.4.1 The Google Books Project

Digitization is a work-intensive and expensive process. It is more than simply making a scan. Before a publication can be scanned, it needs to be taken from its shelve, inspected for missing pages and any folds, tears or damages need to be repaired. Also, the pages need to be checked on any additional (handwritten) notes, fold-out pages or watermarks, so that the right quality and quantity of scanners can be prepared. Then, the books pages are scanned one by one. This either happens on site or through mass digitization companies.

The KB received government funding for many of its early projects, but foresaw that this generosity would end. They therefore looked for subsidy not only in public funds, but also private ones. In 2010, the KB and Google made an agreement to digitize more than 160.000 public domain books from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.79 The KB

delivered the books and corresponding metadata to Google, and then received the digitized files from Google. The books were made fully searchable and accessible through Google Books and various KB-websites. For the National Library, this agreement was advantageous since it gave them ‘the unique opportunity to accelerate the digitization process, increase the discoverability of the collection and improve access and usage of a unique body of 18th and

76 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Collectieplan 2010-2013: Fysiek en digitaal integraal (Den Haag, 2010), 19. 77 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, ‘Bibliotheekcollecties in het netwerk,’ Koninklijke Bibliotheek: Nationale

bibliotheek van Nederland. Last accessed 29 November 2015.

78 Ibid.

79 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, ‘Koninklijke Bibliotheek and Google sign book digitisation agreement,’ Koninklijke

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19th century scientific, legal and social works.’80 For Google, the partnership with the KB

supported their mission to make the world’s books available for anyone with Internet connection. The agreement was extended for another two years. In 2015 and 2016, 100.000 books from the library of the University of Amsterdam will be digitized.81

Simultaneously, the library continued to research secure permanent preservation and access to electronic information. In order to gather sufficient funds, technical possibilities and staff, the National Library developed an international E-Depot, with a specifically long-term perspective.82 The depot ensures research communities, libraries and publishers permanent

storage, surviving transience of hardware, software and digital information carriers. The Dutch government provides funding for the library’s research in preservation of digital documents. Access to the publications in the E-Depot is determined by each individual archiving agreement (in bulk) with the publisher. The user is either granted full access (open access) or on-site access. The KB strives for a balance in these agreements between

commercial interests of the publisher and its own mission to serve its users.

The E-Depot also began preserving web pages in 2007, because it is a valuable source for (future) researchers and students. The KB has selected websites that have cultural and academic content, or those that are trending and popular. A web crawler is used to

automatically harvest those selected pages. Due to copyright restrictions, the web archive is online consultable from the KB reading rooms. In September 2015, 8.400 websites had been selected for harvesting. 83

2.4.2 Delpher

The university libraries of Amsterdam, Groningen, Leiden and Utrecht, the Meertens Institute and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek decided to cooperate in order to combine the fragmented supply of digitized historical text collections, and to make them searchable through one interface. Before, there were separate websites for all collections, for example

Earlydutchbooksonline.nl and Tijdschriften.kb.nl (for magazines). This one portal became Delpher. First, a beta version was launched, but it became a full service in November 2014.

Delpher is a large source of digitized historical test collections from the seventeenth to the twentieth century in the Netherlands. It differs from Google in the sense that search results are not influenced by earlier searches, commercials or website layouts. It solely searches on

80 Ibid.

81 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, ‘Over het Google-project,’ Koninklijke Bibliotheek: Nationale bibliotheek van

Nederland. Last accessed 22 November 2015.

82 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Collectieplan 2010-2013, 6.

83 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, ‘Web archiving,’ Koninklijke Bibliotheek: National Library of the Netherlands. Last accessed 22 November 2015.

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the used search term. Delpher provides access to publications from heritage institutions such as universities, libraries, archives and museums. Delpher, in 2015, holds more than 150.000 books, one million newspapers and about one-and-a-half million magazine pages.84 These

numbers will rise in the coming years, with amongst others publications that were digitized by Metamorfoze.

The collection in Delpher now consists of the publications of the Early Dutch Books Online project, the Google collection, eight million newspaper pages (10% of all newspapers from the Netherlands, the Dutch Indies, the Dutch Antilles and Surinam, between 1618 and 1995), eighty magazine titles and 1,8 million pages of transcribed radio bulletins and 1200 digitized books from the National Library from the period 1913 – 1929. Most of these titles are non-fiction books, among which are several laws, architecture, topography, flora and fauna of the Dutch Indies and religious and political writings. There is also a small literary collection. In the end, it is the KB’s goal to make all textual collections in or from the Netherlands available on Delpher.85

The datasets in Delpher are accessible for research and other objectives. Through an API (Application Programming Interface), digital images, metadata and texts can be made available, allowing users or researchers to build their own tools around the datasets.86 API can

function as a building block for programmers. Some data sets are completely open for use, such as the aforementioned projects Early Dutch Books Online, Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts and The Dutch Digital Parliamentary Pages. For others, a license is necessary (ANP Radiobulletins). Other datasets are only available for academic research purposes.

The National Library launched their own application that used content from the digitized newspapers, illustrating the (commercial) possibilities of their content. With the application Hier was het nieuws (Here was the news), the user can request historical

information on their current whereabouts in the Netherlands. In this application, latitude and longitude data was added to the digitized Dutch historical newspapers, their digitized journals and the ANP Radio Bulletins from the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. It was a cooperation of the KB and the Mondriaan Fonds as part of the workshop SmartErfgoed.87

Users can share the newspaper articles through the app on Facebook or Twitter.88 Other

84 Koninklijke Bibliotheek. ‘Over Delpher,’ Delpher. Last accessed 22 November 2015.

85 Maaike Napolitano, ‘Delpher: van bèta naar beter,’ in IP: vakblad voor informatieprofessionals 01/2015, 16-17.

86 ‘Over Delpher,’ Delpher.

87 Digitaal Erfgoed Nederland, ‘SmartErfgoed 2011: slimme inzet van nieuwe (locatieve) media, DEN:

Kenniscentrum Digitaal Erfgoed. Published 27 September 2011. Last accessed 22 November 2015.

88 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, ‘KB lanceert app “Hier was het nieuws.”’ Koninklijke Bibliotheek: Nationale

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