Fiona Talbott and Karen Brookfield, Heritage Lottery Fund – Are heritage organisations embracing digital? The state of digital technology in Heritage Lottery Funded projects

Digital State of the Sector

Fiona TalbottHead of Museums, Libraries and Archives

October 2015

HLF research• July 2013 – July 2014 funded 3,800 projects. • 512 responses to survey

• Reviewed 40 projects to evaluate quality and effectiveness; and 10 in depth interviews

• Digital outputs in majority of the 512 projects,

• Only 1 considered ‘wholly digital’ • Only 1 had no digital element at all

Digital Outputs • Documents/archives being

digitised • Film/video being digitised• Sound recordings being digitised• Creating new images• Creating new film/video• Creating new sound recordings• New documentation and data sets• Web site with heritage assets • School resources • Mobile applications, games or

augmented reality

Good News• Majority digitising analogue content (e.g. photos, films,

audio recordings)

• Two thirds producing dedicated websites

• Over half of projects producing digital images and/or videos

• Around a third produced new documentation and data-sets

• Only 14% developing other digital tools like apps or augmented reality

Challenges • Understanding audiences

• Making heritage discoverable

• Developing digital skills

• Funding

• Ambition

Achieving quality?• Plan, design and deliver with

audience in mind

• Offer opportunity for people to contribute and participate.

• Allow sharing and re-use of content

• Encourage people to collect and ‘curate’ digital material

A proposition