Cultural Heritage Information: Access and Management. Ian Ruthven and G. G. Chowdhury (eds).

Abstract

Cultural Heritage Information: Access and Management. Ian Ruthven and G. G. Chowdhury (eds). London: Facet Publishing, 2015. 253 pp. ISBN: 9781856049306. £64.95 (paperback). This monograph presents a comprehensive overview of digital cultural heritage initiatives and issues from a broad theoretical perspective as well as through current research projects and activities. Both recognized experts in the field, Ian Ruthven (Professor of Information Seeking and Retrieval, University of Strathclyde, UK) and Gobinda Chowdhury (Professor of Information Science and Head of the Department of Mathematics and Information Sciences, Northumbria University, UK) have assembled a volume of well-structured contributions written in accessible terms that explain complex concepts clearly. This book will be invaluable to information science students, professionals working in libraries, museums, and archives, and those interested in learning about the current state of affairs in the field of digital cultural heritage information management from an information science perspective. The title of this collection is slightly imprecise, since the volume focuses almost exclusively on the ‘digital’ landscape of cultural heritage—rather than cultural heritage generally speaking—from digitization to information systems architecture to crowdsourcing projects and user outreach, and the consideration of relevant social, cultural, and economic factors at all stages. There is no discussion of material selection or acquisition policies and processes, since most of the cultural heritage materials under discussion are already in institutional holdings. Instead, this work emphasizes initiatives at cultural heritage institutions to create digital resources for existing collections, and to make them available to a wider audience: as one contributor notes, ‘we are now at a juncture where institutions are expected to provide digital versions of their holdings’ (p. 82). The two fundamental challenges at this point are therefore dealing with ‘the heterogeneous nature of many cultural heritage collections and the growing need to provide non-specialist users with access to cultural heritage content’ (p. 197). Awareness of cultural heritage preservation techniques and issues in … ksmith11{at}stanford.edu