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1. Concept of Networking Cultural Heritage How familiar is your organization and its constituents with the terms of this vision and with the current issues that have to be grappled with to make this vision a reality? Very familiar, as institutions go. While this understanding may not be universal throughout the museum, it exists on many levels and in a significant number of content areas. |
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2a Given this definition of advocacy, how does your organization advocate for networking cultural heritage? We advocate through our participation in various forums where these issues are discussed and debated; by addressing the problems on a practical level and being willing to invest our time, people and other resources in efforts where we can't always predict the outcome with great certainty; and by our participation in projects that seek to establish standards that would make networking of cultural heritage possible (MESL, CIMI, CHIO) |
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2b Do you have a different working definition of advocacy than the one we offer here? Personally, I believe advocacy involves action and I believe NMAA acts on its convictions. This is not necessarily different from your definition--it is just somewhat rare in my experience of a fairly bureaucratic world. |
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2c Projects? Of the projects that your organization participates in, which are related to digital networking? Many, including: the databases (sculpture, inventory of American painting, collection database) are all resources that could be used in such a project; New Media projects, which have given us a great deal of knowledge and expertise about putting cultural information online; our work with such organizations as CIMI and MESL, which has informed us about possible benefits and difficulties of collaborating with other institutions; work with school districts in Nebraska and Texas to put images and other resources online with the intent that they will be used in the classroom. |
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2d Partners? If you collaborate with partners in any networking advocacy activity, who are they? MCN, ALA, CIMI, MESL |
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2e Measure Success? How do you measure the success of your networking advocacy projects? From these projects we generally get a product that is related to the museum's goals. That counts in my mind as a success. We usually learn a great deal about how to approach future projects; this can be a more subtle but ultimately more rewarding form of success. |
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2f Target? Besides NINCH members, what groups should NINCH target for advocacy? NINCH's dream will ultimately depend on the development of standards for the storage and manipulation of data, and the adoption of those standards not only by cultural institutiopns but by software developers. Z39.50 may soon search across distributed databases of several institutions, but we will also need better software to get this ability into the hands of "creators, scholars, the general public, and by teachers and learners of all ages." Even now, the results of web searches can be so broad as to be meaningless or just overwhelming |
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No response |
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2. --intellectual property 1. -standards 3. --access 4. --economics 6. -internationalism 5 -preservation |
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