The Sloane Lab: Looking back to build future shared collections

博物馆、图书馆、档案馆和画廊（GLAMs）如何利用数字技术将它们的藏品联系起来，使不同的人，包括专家和感兴趣的公众，更容易找到他们想要的信息？数字技术如何帮助我们讲述新的故事，通过连接藏品来重新发现和重新想象什么？我们如何让专业用户和公众更了解博物馆藏品的争议性质和历史？数字工具在突出被忽视或隐藏的过程中发挥了什么作用，比如帝国主义、殖民主义、奴隶贸易、损失和破坏，这些过程塑造了国家收藏？谁来参与和塑造记忆机构如何跨越机构界限、学科专业甚至国家的研究，从而更好地吸引不同的受众？遗产机构如何从众多可用的技术中选择最有用的技术来数字化、发布和互联他们的藏品？大英博物馆的创始收藏是探索这些挑战的丰富领域，这是许多组织面临的挑战。这是因为博物馆最初的1753年汉斯·斯隆爵士的创始收藏品现在分散在三个不同的机构（大英博物馆（BM），自然历史博物馆（NHM）和大英图书馆（BL）），描述这些创始收藏品的数字信息位于不同的机构中，处于一系列不同的系统中，这些系统目前还没有建立起来相互交流。通过关注目录记录和汉斯·斯隆爵士的大量剩余藏品，该项目将与感兴趣的社区和遗产组织合作，将现在与过去联系起来，以便在NHM、BL、BM（以及其他拥有相关材料的机构）中重新建立斯隆藏品和目录之间目前中断的联系。我们项目的主要成果将是一个免费的在线数字实验室（斯隆实验室），它将为研究人员、策展人和感兴趣的公众提供搜索、探索、批判性和创造性地使用和再利用数字文化遗产的新机会。至关重要的是，我们将让一个广泛的感兴趣的用户社区参与我们对国家收藏的未来研究。我们会邀请专家和有兴趣的公众参与计划的策划、研究和实施的各个阶段，例如问卷调查、焦点小组和访谈。我们的参与式方法最令人兴奋的方面之一将是我们将通过公开征集任命的10名社区研究员。他们将获得所需的资金和技术援助，利用斯隆实验室对国家藏品进行创造性、以研究为主导或以实践为基础的项目。除了专门的巡回展览，以及对大英博物馆启蒙画廊的改变，我们还将通过发布我们的代码、工具和建议来支持英国和国际上的其他记忆机构。在与他们进行持续协商后，我们将制定量身定制的示范和建议，以促进他们参与数字国家收藏。这个项目有可能使目前脱节的国家收藏以新的方式相互联系，搜索和研究，而不是试图隐藏或忽略这些收藏的争议性。这样做将表明，所有“好奇和感兴趣的人”，而不仅仅是策展人、计算机科学家和数字人文主义者，都可以为未来的国家收藏做出重要贡献。

How can museums, libraries, archives and galleries (GLAMs) use digital technology to link their collections together in ways that make it easier for different people, both specialists and interested publics, to find the information they want? How can digital technology help us tell new stories about what can be rediscovered, and reimagined, by linking collections? How can we make specialist users and members of the public more aware of the contested nature and histories of museum collections? What is the role of digital tools in foregrounding overlooked or hidden processes, like imperialism, colonialism, the slave trade, loss and destruction, that have shaped the national collection? Who gets to contribute to, and shape, research on how memory institutions can reach across their institutional boundaries, subject-specialities and even countries so as to better engage their varied audiences? And how can heritage institutions select the most useful technologies from the many that are available for digitizing, releasing and interlinking their collections?The founding collection of the British Museum is a rich area to explore these challenges, which are ones that many organizations face. This is because the Museum's original 1753 founding collection of Sir Hans Sloane is now split across three different institutions (the British Museum (BM), Natural History Museum (NHM) and the British Library (BL)) and the digital information that describes this founding collections sits in the different institutions in a range of different systems that are not currently set up to talk to one another. By focusing on catalogue records, and the vast, remaining collections of Sir Hans Sloane, this project will work with interested communities and heritage organisations to link the present with the past so as to allow the currently broken links between Sloane's collections and catalogues to be re-established across the NHM, BL, BM (plus others that have relevant material). The main outcome of our project will be a freely available, online digital lab (the Sloane Lab) that will offer researchers, curators and interested publics new opportunities to search, explore, and critically and creatively use and reuse digital cultural heritage. Crucially, we will involve a broad community of interested users in our future-making research on the national collection. We will invite expert and interested publics to contribute to all stages of the planning, research and implementation of our project through e.g. questionnaires, focus groups and interviews. One of the most exciting aspects of our participatory approach will be the 10 Community Fellows we will appoint through an open call. They will be given the funds and technical assistance they require to undertake a creative, research-led or practice-based project on the national collection using the Sloane Lab. Along with a dedicated traveling exhibition, and changes to the British Museum's Enlightenment Gallery, we will also support other memory institutions in the UK and internationally by releasing our code, tools and recommendations. Following ongoing consultation with them we will develop tailored demonstrators and recommendations that can facilitate their participation in the digital national collection. This project has the potential to allow the currently disjointed national collection to be interlinked, searched and researched in new ways that do not seek to hide or omit the contested nature of these collections. In doing so it will show that all "curious and interested persons", and not just curators, computer scientists and digital humanists, have important contributions to make to the future national collection.