ABSTRACT
What are the experiences of cultural heritage organisations (libraries, archives, museums, university collections and herbaria) participating in national and international digital infrastructure projects? Which factors enable and impede cultural heritage organisations in unifying siloed collections? How do these factors differ between countries? The early 2020s were marked by a surge of investments in Collections as Data infrastructures, such as made by the United Kingdom’s Towards a National Collection programme, the European Commissions’ Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage, or the Australian Research Data Commons. However, despite cultural heritage organisations’ key role as data providers for digital infrastructures there is a lack of qualitative research comparing their perspectives internationally. Ascertaining such a perspective is necessary to better understand the latent and yet potent challenges that are encountered by institutions as they seek to advance collections data frameworks. This chapter takes the first steps in bringing international perspectives on Collections as Data infrastructure developments in conversation. Findings from UK consultations are advanced with data gathered in two focus group discussions held with cultural heritage organisations in Germany and Australia. The findings address issues in the way infrastructure programmes tend to be set up, divergent disciplinary cultures, deficiencies in professional development and ethics.
