The Netherlands is in the process of developing a national system for the collection of data that would reflect the production of digital heritage. In september 2008 The Digital Facts has completed the first phase of the research. View the first results.

By the end of 2008 the project was completed.
View the offcial results (in dutch)

An advisory committee was appointed, with members representing the main heritage sectors. With regular meetings, their expertise has been instrumental in successfully developing the methodology.
The advisory committee was composed of:

• Jos de Haan (Netherlands Institute for Social Research SCP / Erasmus University Rotterdam EUR)
• Frans Hoving (Netherlands Institute for Heritage)
• Janneke van Kersen (Dutch Ministry of Education, Cultural Affairs and Science OCW – Cultural Heritage Directorate)
• Isjah Koppejan (Netherlands Institute for Heritage)
• Marie France van Oorsouw (Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage ICN)
• Henk Voorbij (National Library KB / University of Amsterdam UvA)
• Agnes Vugts (Netherlands Museum Advisors Foundation LCM / MusIP)
• Robert van der Zwan (Dutch Ministry of Education, Cultural Affairs and Science OCW)

The two main goals of the project were:

• to develop a system that can be implemented for the structural gathering of digital heritage data (its production output and costs);

• to gather statistical data that would give policy makers an insight into the currently available digital heritage and the investment that has taken place.

In order to define a national approach, the following subjects were considered:

• Representation of the entire national heritage is desired. Definitions on what constitutes the national Dutch digital heritage will define the scope of the project, but will not be limited by organization types. The project will include both the representations as well as the descriptions of the national heritage. The level of detail on the reported descriptions will depend on data available.

• Units of measurement for the digitized content have to be defined. Analogue units of measure from heritage housed at archives, libraries, museums, as well as archaeology and monument organizations, will be reviewed and comparable units of measure for digital heritage will be established.

• Characteristics of digital heritage will be identified. The digital national heritage will be examined, its role within the organization and relation to other ‘objects’ will be established. Are objects, for instance, part of the core collection? Or part of the reference collection? Other characteristics further include the accessibility of the content both inside and outside the organization, as well as for work related use or general related use.

• Absolute and Relative growth will be measured. Absolute growth will look at everything that has been digitized, to include production of ‘born-digital’ heritage. Relative growth will include considerations regarding the percentage of the analogue collection that has been made digital, as well as the type of information created digital about each object (that can be text, image, or multimedia for example).

• Type and source of financing will be investigated. Structural and incidental investment will be differentiated and sources of funds will be identified. Due to the nature of the project, only financing that responds to the personal costs and of the handlings costs of the production, description, management and interoperability will be considered. For a complete cycle of the digitization process see the ICT register.

• Sources of information will be identified and collated. There are repositories of (partial) information that can support provide a national profile on production of and on investment on digital heritage.

• User data and access data are currently not considered in the study. There is great interest in exploring the possibility to expand data gathering to include data that reflects access and use of digital heritage content.

• Systematic production and reporting of data will be supported. A national approach to designing an infrastructure for the structural gathering and analysis of data will be explored.

The Digital Facts research project is linked to an European project called Numeric (see www.numeric.ws), in which the Netherlands takes part. Numeric is a two year project (from May 2007 and until April 2009) that intends to “measure the investment made in the EU and to catalogue the achievements of digitizing Europe’s cultural heritage and information materials.”

The Netherlands will participate in Numeric by supporting the process of defining a methodology. The two projects will inform each other and will learn from the established mechanisms to gather data for analysis. Numeric can be an additional access point to Dutch national statistics on digital heritage.

Deze informatie in het Nederlands