Digital Cultural Heritage Data & AI : a museum perspective

TIME MACHINE CONFERENCE 2018
EPFL / Swiss Tech Convention Center – 31/10/2018
Saskia Scheltjens
Head Research Services
slideshare.net/saschel
@saschel
DIGITAL
CULTURAL
HERITAGE
DATA & AI
A museum perspective
MaskbyLeshaLemonov,inspiredbyPortretvaneenmeisjeinhetblauwby
JohannesCornelisz.Verspronck,1641-WinnerRijksmuseuAward2017*

MUSEUMS & AI
Ambiguous relationship
Awake and asleep at the same time
COVER IMAGE

Cultural heritage can be an asset for AI
if you understand the dynamics of
cultural heritage institutions
because it is complicated
but it also enriches & enables
innovation
TAKE AWAY

The National Museum of Art
and History of The Netherlands
Dutch Golden Age and beyond
+1.200.000 artworks
+2.000.000 visitors each year
State funded since 1800
Partial privatization in 1995
26 % government subsidy in 2017
FACTS & FIGURES

COMPLEX MISSION
We
• collect,
• keep,
• manage,
• conserve,
• restore,
• research,
• prepare,
• present,
• publish, and
• share
data and information about
art and historical objects

=
Early Open Data Champion
in Cultural Heritage World

2003-2011
Discussions with curators about opening up collections
online
Curated parts of the collection on the website (ARIA)
First open collection data freely available is the metadata
of the Rijksmuseum Research Library (in 2004)
Co-operation with universities in projects re early
semantic heritage data research (VU, CWI)
http://schatkamer.nai.nl/system/pictures/170/original/Rijks_t2299.jpg?1308227959
OPEN DATA : WHEN

OPEN DATA : WHY
Long renovation/restoration
Closed between 2003-2012
Re-opening of the museum in 2013

Regaining control
by sharing
OPEN DATA : WHY

2012
First PID server for open collection data (handle system)
Open Cultuur Data hackathon
Release of 111.000 images with a CC-BY licence
Launch of a new website, a new collection discovery
interface Rijksstudio and an OAI-PMH API (build by Q42
and Fabrique)
Development of first ever digital strategy, linked to the
website but also linked to mission & values of the museum
OPEN DATA : WHEN

We connect people, art and history
Our collection belongs to everyone
• Simple
• Personal
• Authentic
• Qualitative
• Innovative
Open and Connected are central to what we do
MISSION & CORE VALUES

First ever digital strategy in the museum:
• Public first, technology second
• Mobile first
• Focus on the visual
• Content needs to be shared
• Everyone is a maker
Link to mission & core values
Closely connected to website redesign
DIGITAL STRATEGY (2012)

632.953 art works – 411.745 Rijksstudios (25/5/2018)
OPEN DATA : HOW

OPEN DATA : HOW
single immediate download (if Rijksstudio account)

OPEN DATA : RESULTS

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/vogelen
Numerous
successful
public crowd-
sourcing events
& hackathons
OPEN DATA : RESULTS
Photo by Romaine – CC0 1.0 -

Datasource for
all kinds of different
academic research
OPEN DATA : RESULTS
Chris Dijkshoorn, Lora Aroyo, …
http://www.accurator.nl/#Intro
*Thomas Mensink and Jan van Gemert,
https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/t.e.j.mensink/uva12/rijks
*Floor Koeneman - http://visualizingvisions.com
*

Datasource for
academic education
OPEN DATA : RESULTS
Rijksdata Challenge
Information Science Ba1 – olv Victor de Boer (VU)

2013
Release of all public collection data & images under a
CC0 license
2016
Launch of a live API (JSON), instigated by a request from
Google Arts & Culture (GA&C)
2018
Launch of an innovative new Rijksmuseum app, including
way-finding, and a SnapGuide
OPEN DATA : WHEN

http://rijksmuseum.github.io/ (documentation)
https://github.com/Rijksmuseum (code)

‘The Difficult Second Date’
Merete Sanderhoff (2016)

• Fragmented responsabilities
• Collection data silos
• Complex collection data delivery
• Stability & scalability of data services
• Lack of versioning
• Seamless is fiction
PAINPOINTS of past situation

• Dare to be open
• Change what doesn’t work
• Holistic data approach
• Agile development museum wide
• Metadata about metadata
• Take responsability
LESSONS LEARNED

NEW Department of
Research Services
Alignment of
all collection
information ánd data
to support
innovative
research services
RESULT: REORGANISATON

COMPLEX ORGANISATION
Departments involved in
opening up collection data:
1. Research Services
open data services, data
management & - archiving
2. IT -> systems, security
3. Communication & Marketing
digital marketing, website &
collection discovery interfaces
4. Collections Management
metadata creation & digitization
5. Curatorial departments
metadata creation

COLLECTION
CONNECTION
CONVERSION
Eenwaterval,JanvanKessel(1641-1680),1660-1680-
http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8874

• Rise of technical art history (NICAS institute)
• New collaborations in Digital (Art) History
• Rising interest in computational image
processing & visualization > AI
• Growing consensus re heritage data modeling
• Generational shift
LOCAL OPPORTUNITIES

• Do more with more data
• Networking (national, international)
• Scaling up
• Take societal responsibility
• Remain OPEN
FUTURE PLANS

AI can be an asset for cultural heritage
if we understand the dynamics of
artificial intelligence research
because it is complicated
but it also enriches & enables
innovation
TAKE AWAY 2

THANK YOU *
Parts of this presentation are based upon work of and talks with
Taco Dibbits
Robert Erdmann
Chris Dijkshoorn
Maarten Heerlien
Lora Aroyo
Merete Sanderhoff
Ruben Verborgh
Lizzy Jongma
Peter Gorgels
This presentation uses images & fonts with an open license, except otherwise indicated by an *

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