Ancient Culture Goes Online as National Museum Digitises

Phnom Penh Post, Cambodia

by Christopher Scott, January 29, 2014

After nine years of locating works, cross-checking records, photographing and finally cataloguing, the National Museum has unveiled its online database, which features more than 16,000 entries ranging from ancient statues to paintings and manuscripts.

Launched on January 3, the database is the only fine arts system of its kind in Cambodia, with its web presence enabling museum curators to locate and document works, as well as providing the public with access.

Funded by the Leon Levy Foundation, the National Museum of Cambodia collaborated with the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS), an international, non-governmental organisation that supports and promotes research and scholarly exchange with Cambodia.

“It’s extremely important for Cambodians as well as researchers, whether they be just generally interested in Cambodian art, wanting to actually locate, write about or research something in particular in the collection,” Darryl Collins, project director and member of the CKS board of directors, said.

Prior to the online database, museum records were scattered in three different formats, with several French card cataloguing systems, Khmer handwritten inventory lists and a pre-existing database.

“Before it was rather laborious; virtually you had to turn up on the doorstep of the National Museum Of Cambodia to talk to the curatorial staff or the director and find out about a particular piece,” Collins said.

More here. 

Digital Heritage Projects with Indigenous Peoples, final post

Digital Himalaya Project

Go to: http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/overview.php

From the website:

The Digital Himalaya Project is digitising archival collections of ethnographic information from the Himalayan region. Five major anthropological collections were selected for digitisation in the first phase of the project to reflect a range of different media and a wide coverage of geographical areas and ethnic populations from across the Himalayas. Alongside these visual and audio collections, we have more recently digitised an extensive set of back issues of Himalayan journals and maps and have created layered GIS maps of Nepal's 75 districts...

At inception in 2000, the Digital Himalaya project had three primary objectives:

1. to preserve in a digital medium archival anthropological materials from the Himalayan region that are quickly degenerating in their current forms, including films in various formats, still photographs, sound recordings, field notes, maps and rare journals

2. to make these resources available over broadband internet connections, coupled with an accurate search and retrieval system useful to contemporary researchers and students

3. to make these resources available on DVD to the descendants of the people from whom the materials were collected by making them both easily transportable and viewable in a digital medium

Turin, Mark. 2011. Salvaging the Records of Salvage Anthropology: The story of the Digital Himalaya Project. Book 2.0. 1(1): 39-46.

Digital Heritage Projects with Indigenous Peoples, continued

iPinch | Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage: Theory, Practice, Politics, EthicsGo to: http://www.sfu.ca/ipinch/about

From the website:

Mission: The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage research project is an international collaboration of archaeologists, Indigenous organizations, lawyers, anthropologists, ethicists, policy makers, and others working to explore and facilitate fair and equitable exchanges of knowledge relating to archaeology. We are concerned with the theoretical, ethical, and practical implications of commodification, appropriation, and other flows of knowledge about the past, and how these may affect communities, researchers, and other stakeholders.

Vision: The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage research project provides a foundation of research, knowledge and resources to assist archaeologists, academic institutions, descendant communities, scholars, policy makers, and other stakeholders in negotiating more equitable and successful terms of research and policies through an agenda of community-based research and topical exploration of IP issues. Our focus is on archaeology as a primary component of cultural heritage; however, this project is ultimately concerned with larger issues of the nature of knowledge and rights based on culture—how these are defined and used, who has control and access, and especially how fair and appropriate use and access can be achieved to the benefit of all stakeholders in the past.

Digital Heritage Projects with Indigenous Peoples, continued

GRASAC | Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures
Go to: https://grasac.org/gks/gks_about.php
From the website:

The organization is an international collaborative partnership of Aboriginal community researchers, museum and archival scholars and university researchers. Members contribute insights and knowledge from their own areas of understanding and in turn benefit from insights and knowledge of others. GRASAC consists of two key components: the network of people who meet, work together on research projects, and exchange ideas; and the web-based software tools being developed to enable remote collaboration and sharing....

...Access to the site is controlled for several reasons.

1. Some of the material housed in museums and archives is considered sacred or sensitive by Aboriginal community members. We are in the process of learning more and working out protocols to protect this material, but until that time, broader public access must be limited.

2. Some material on the site (such as digital photography) is affected by copyright laws. We have obtained permission to share this material with our members and member organizations (including our Aboriginal community centre and First Nations partners, but not with the broader public at this point).

3. Finally and most importantly, GRASAC was founded upon the principle of reciprocity. Members not only use the site for their own research, but are expected to contribute their knowledge to it...

Digital Heritage Projects with Indigenous Peoples, continued

Mukurtu
Go to: http://www.mukurtu.org/about.html

From the website:

The Mukurtu project began in the remote Central Australian town of Tennant Creek with the creation of the Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari Archive. The project was born from the needs of the Warumungu Aboriginal community who wanted an archival platform that allowed them to organize, manage and share their digital cultural materials in line with their cultural protocols. Using new technologies we collaborated to develop a user-friendly and culturally relevant system embedded with Warumungu social and cultural protocols. This solution began and ended with the understanding that technology is meant to bend to human needs, not the other way around. Mukurtu is now in development as a free and open source platform distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (or "GPL").

Christen, Kimberly. 2008. Archival Challenges and Digital Solutions in Aboriginal Australia. SAA Archaeological Record. 8 (2): 21-24.

Plateau Peoples' Web PortalGo to: http://plateauportal.wsulibs.wsu.edu/html/ppp/index.php
From the website:

This project is a collaboration between the Plateau Center for American Indian Studies at Washington State University and tribal consultants from the Umatilla, Coeur d'Alene and Yakama nations. The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal is a gateway to Plateau peoples' cultural materials held in Washington State University's Libraries, Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections (MASC), the Museum of Anthropology and national donors including the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian Institution. The materials in the portal have been chosen and curated by the tribes....

Christen, Kimberly. 2011. Opening Archives: Respectful Repatriation. The American Archivist. 74(1): 185-210.

Christen, Kimberly. 2006. Ara Irititja: Protecting the Past, Accessing the Future -- Indigenous Memories in a Digital Age. Museum Anthropology. 29(1): 56-60.

Digital Heritage Projects with Indigenous Peoples, continued

Creating Collaborative Catalogs ProjectGo to: http://www.digital-diversity.org/?page_id=109

From the website:

A unique partnership underpins this project, linking a university team with expertise in digital museum and community information system design and evaluation (UCLA’s Department of Information Studies), a tribal museum at the Pueblo of Zuni (the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center), a regional museum of culture, art, and science (Museum of Northern Arizona), a major art museum (Denver Art Museum), a major natural history museum (Denver Museum of Nature & Science), and an international anthropology museum (Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology)...

...Innovation and collaboration are the key goals of this project, using new technologies to enhance how museum collections are described via a collaboration with Native communities. The development, evaluation and dissemination of our model for collaborative catalogs will consider cultural protocols, museum collection management systems, blogging/tagging technologies, focus group evaluations, and public workshops, which other museums can sustainably adopt in their uses of digital resources for capacity building in integrating Indigenous perspectives into their collections.

Srinivasan, Ramesh. 2006. Indigenous, Ethic and Cultural Articulations of New Media. International Journal of Cultural Studies. 9(4): 497-518.

Srinivasan, Ramesh, Jim Enote, Katherine Becvar, and Robin Boast. 2009. Critical and reflective uses of new media technologies in tribal museums. Museum Management and Curatorship. 24(2): 169-189.