{"id":1631,"date":"2019-07-30T16:12:01","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T20:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/emg-review\/?page_id=1631"},"modified":"2019-11-01T15:58:33","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T19:58:33","slug":"morfin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/emg-review\/volume-5-2017-2018\/morfin\/","title":{"rendered":"Unsustainable Digital Collections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jo Ana Morfin
The Electronic Media Review, Volume Five: 2017-2018<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ABSTRACT<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This\npaper analyzes how in the context of Mexican museums, the lack of policies,\nframeworks and strategic planning has led to the creation of unsustainable\ncultural digital collections. It focuses on the challenges in rescuing the\ndigital collection Bienal Inter\u00adnacional\nde Poes\u00eda Visual y Experimental<\/em> (Biennale of Visual and Experimental Poetry),\nheld at the Mediateque of the Museo Universitario del Chopo. The Mexican\nartists Araceli Z\u00fa\u00f1iga and C\u00e9sar Espinosa (b.1939) organized the International Biennales of Visual and\nExperimental Poetry<\/em> between 1985 and 2009. These events brought together\npractitioners from all over the world whose work is placed at the intersections\nof the fields of contemporary visual writing, copy art, concrete music, mail\nart, and performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout\nthe years, Z\u00fa\u00f1iga and Espinosa became interested in creating a \u201cmemory\u201d of\nthese events. Therefore, they started to gather videos, mail art works,\nphotography, artistic electrography, from each event. The collection was stored\nat their house and clas\u00adsified and organized by the artists themselves. Through\nthe years, the collection became a key source for researching and tracing the\ndevelopment of alternative and experimental art practices in Mexico. Given the\nsignificance of this collection and with the aim of preserving and providing\ngreater access to its contents, Z\u00fa\u00f1iga and Espinosa agreed with the Museo\nUniversitario del Chopo in digitizing the materials and donating a digital\nversion to be included in the collection of the museum. Over 2,000 artworks\nwere digitized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, the museum received a grant to put this content online. However, during the development of the project we realized that most of the digital objects were unstable. Given this situation, the project focused on rescuing this digital collection from oblivion. The project brought to light several concerns, such as the lack of digital preservation planning, the deficient use of metadata standards, the shortage of expertise, and more importantly, the lack of institutional policies to create sustainable digital collections. The museum\u2019s team did not follow clear guidelines, standards, and best practices for the creation of digital objects and their subsequent management, affecting the ability to read, access, and understand the digital materials. Furthermore, we became aware that several cultural institutions in Mexico shared this scenario. The project\u2019s findings show that numerous museums undertake digitalization-driven projects without following a strategic plan, thus resulting in unsustainable digital cultural collections. Fortunately, in 2016 three major initiatives aimed at overseeing the creation and management of cultural digital collections emerged. Working in close collaboration with these platforms\u2014Metadata for the Mexican Cultural Heritage, Cultural National Agenda for Digital Projects, and Digital Preservation Group\u2014we developed a plan for rescue and long-term access to the collection of Bienal Internacional de Poes\u00eda Visual Experimental<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jo Ana Morfin
Conservator
Museo Universitario del Chopo
Mexico<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jo Ana MorfinThe Electronic Media Review, Volume Five: 2017-2018 ABSTRACT This paper analyzes how in the context of Mexican museums, the lack of policies, frameworks and strategic planning has led to the creation of unsustainable cultural digital collections. It focuses on the challenges in rescuing the digital collection Bienal Inter\u00adnacional de Poes\u00eda Visual y Experimental … Continue reading “Unsustainable Digital Collections”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"parent":618,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1631","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/emg-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/emg-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/emg-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/emg-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/emg-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/emg-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1631\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/emg-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/emg-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}