Policies
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 The community is creating and using digital resources with little guidance on best practices or the ethical issues affecting use. AIC’s Guidelines for Practice and its associated commentaries[1] which articulate policy standards for the profession, were last updated in 2008 and do not align with current policies and practices that exist in the cultural heritage community. In particular, the Guidelines that address disclosure, confidentiality, documentation, and preservation of documentation are at odds with the principles of transparency, collaboration, and sharing necessary for effective use of information in the online environment. The process of creating and upgrading these policies also needs to be changed to be more transparent and to incorporate input and review from a broader community.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 5 But before the field addresses its own guidelines, it needs to familiarize itself with guidelines for digital practices in other communities in the cultural sector, and be aware of recent shifts in policy positions that are affecting these guidelines. For example, there is growing movement in the museum community towards more open access to collections,[2] and many cultural heritage collaborations now require openly shareable metadata as a prerequisite to participation.[3] Communities tightly allied with conservation also are developing practices that break with disciplinary traditions, such as the recent acceptance by artists and art historians of fair use guidelines for their profession.[4]
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 These examples signal important changes in the cultural heritage sector’s policy arena. Conservation must align its own policies and practices with these sectors, or risk being isolated from the communities of which it is a part. Doing so will mean changing long-established policies and traditions, and convincing colleagues that these changes are needed to position the field for the future.
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 Recommendations:
¶ 5
Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0
Restructure the Process for Revising the AIC Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice (Short-term)
The Guidelines currently are written by a single task force and approved by the AIC Board of Directors. This process worked well in the past but the expansive nature of the field and its interactions with myriad cultural sectors require a more open and fast-moving process. To achieve greater agility and transparency, the process should be restructured to:
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- Include different voices and perspectives from within the community
- Incorporate an external review component into the process
- Ensure that the Guidelines undergo review at more frequent intervals
- Incorporate a review of guidelines of practice in key allied communities
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Revise the AIC Guidelines to Incorporate Digital Components of Conservation Practice (Mid-term)
The creation and use of digital resources are now common in the profession, but the Guidelines do not reflect this reality. A systematic update is needed to:
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- Develop a new guideline whose central plank declares 1) the importance of the digital landscape to the profession and 2) the obligation of those in the profession to make that landscape serviceable for the field.
- Revise existing guidelines that are integral to the digital landscape, so they incorporate best practices that support the growth and development of this landscape.
- Ensure these guidelines align with similar guidelines in the library, archive and museum communities and with other closely allied organizations and professions.
¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 [1] AIC Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice http://www.conservation-us.org/about-us/core-documents/code-of-ethics-and-guidelines-for-practice/code-of-ethics-and-guidelines-for-practice#.VSvLCWaBg6F
¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 [2] See Open Collections. OpenGLAM. http://openglam.org/open-collections/
¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0 [3] The Digital Public Library of America Policy Statement on Metadata. http://dp.la/info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/DPLAMetadataPolicy.pdf and the Council of Library and Information Resources Application Guidelines, Hidden Collections Grant Program. http://www.clir.org/hiddencollections/applicants/applicantguidelines.html
¶ 12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0 [4] See College Art Association, Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts. 2015. http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/fair-use/best-practices-fair-use-visual-arts.pdf.
Barbara Reeve
Suzanne Davis
Brenda Bernier
Sarah Barack
Exactly….the fair use guidelines initiative has been instrumental in moving the fine arts/art history ahead. here are two major hurdles that I foresee in implementing these new guidelines (that must be established but will be challenging to establish): 1) Conservators may often be insecure or wary about sharing documents and information relating to treatment history. We only recently evolved from being a craft to being a profession so treatment methods and approaches have changed drastically. We must embrace the fact that we are constantly learning and striving to do what is best for collections. Until our profession is able to hold up this “mirror” so to speak, there will be no movement forward in establishing guidelines for digital projects. Unfortunately AIC will be forced make a decision on how and if it wants to tackle this insecurity. 2) There is currently no precedent on how technical data should be handled. Would an x-radiograph qualify under the fair use act? Is it cultural information or scientific? If a museum contracts a outside party to perform this service should they be entitled to full rights over the image? Many of these questions still need to be addressed within the field but I would begin by looking to larger institutions that have gone the “open-access” route (e.g. NGA, Getty, etc.), posting higher-resolution images of their collections for publication use at no cost. Institutions such as these should now help to pave the way towards promoting access to technical information, especially those funded by American taxpayers.
I think it’s important to distinguish between open access of metadata vs. open access to the data itself, perhaps in two separate paragraphs. Open access of metadata would be a great first step as it would be much easier to implement (legally, technically, economically, emotionally) than open access of the data. For serious researchers, knowing what data exists and where to find it represents a huge leap forward. Even better — single, consolidated points of entry to that metadata. This is the logical first step taken by most academic libraries, and where museums lag behind.
Federal funding agencies have also set metadata standards for digital products funded by their programs. This would be an easy place to start looking at data standards.
In the private sector, we will need to think about individual privacy rights and client confidentiality.
Conservators – and, indeed most internet users – must learn and adhere to copyright legislation. The National Archives of Australia offers good advice and guidance on copyright issues: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/re-using-public-sector-information/copyright-and-re-use/copyright-guidance/
Fair Use is limited, as it not an international standard. More emphasis should be placed on Creative Commons licensing of source assets, data and metadata. Models to follow here include the Internet Archive, Digital Public Library of America and Europeana.