Digital Arts & Humanities - Scholarly Reflections - James O'Sullivan

they can give us greater access to the material they hold for our
society. As the costs associated with digital technology fall the
ability for cultural institutions to provide us with unprecedented
access rises. This gives our communities a greater sense of
proprietorship over our cultural legacy. It also allows smaller,
community run initiatives and sites to have an online presence
that holds up to larger organisations at very little cost. Changing
economic circumstances have curtailed much of the financing
and staffing levels of Irish cultural institutions. One method to
obviate against the commensurate drop in service is to move
deeper into the provision of services online. For example many
archives services allow readers to pre-order collections online
and have them waiting on arrival. This is not just convenient for
the reader but also invaluable to the archive in their ability to
effectively manage dwindling personnel levels. Opening up a
two way dialogue with the users through a more engaging
online presence and increasing public awareness of, and
engagement with, these organisations goes some way to
helping them justify their budgetary requirements to central
government. ‘Save our Libraries Day’ on February 5th 2011 was
a series of protests in the United Kingdom against the proposed
closure of 400 libraries. The action was reasonably successful
and the result was far fewer services closed down. The success
of these protests was a direct result of the libraries actively
engaging with the community to the extent that communities
recognised the cultural deficit in their locality if such core
cultural, and educational, institutions were to be closed. In the
twentieth century the Carnegie grants system helped
communities open their first public libraries so that people could
acquire the knowledge to improve themselves. The expanded
networking and advocacy opportunities provided by the digital
age will help all cultural institutions in the twenty first century
broaden the community that they were established to help.
Bibliography
Acropolis Virtual Tour, http://acropolis-virtualtour.gr/index.html
[accessed on 16/02/2012].
Arachne http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/drupal/?q=de/node/103
[accessed on 16/02/2012].
Aron, Jacob, ‘Smithsonian uses 3D Printing to Share its
Exhibits’ New Scientist Blog, http://www.newscientist.com/
blogs/onepercent/2012/02/smithsonian-uses-3d-printing-t.html
[Accessed on 27 February 2012].
British Library, Turning the Pages, http://www.bl.uk/
onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html [accessed on 17/02/2012].
CHESS - Cultural Heritage Experiences through Socio-personal
Interactions & Storytelling, http://www.chessexperience.eu/j/
project/foreword.html [accessed on 16/02/2012].
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