Bente Jensen

This book is the result of the project “Implementing Heritage Learning Outcomes in the Nordic and Baltic Area” funded by Nordplus Adult. The project started in December 2012 and ended in November 2014. The project was initiated because of the need for cultural heritage institutions to be able to communicate their relevance, to individuals as well as to society. For a long time it has been known among museums and archives that cultural heritage institutions both encourage learning and promote well-being. It is today widely accepted that learning through cultural experiences can develop creative, personal and interpersonal skills which can be essential transferable skills for the working population in a knowledge-based society. Politicians at local, national and Nordic levels have increasingly emphasised that citizens have to keep learning new things throughout their lives in order to develop both new skills and the ability to adapt to new circumstances. This process of lifelong learning is not restricted to the formal educational institutions. If learning is defined as a multi-dimensional process which develops throughout life and can occur in many different places, then museums and archives are by definition places for learning. A question of significance is therefore how these learning activities can be more adequately described and, as a result, more efficiently utilised and assessed by visitors, people in training at the institutions, policy makers, and other stakeholders. Thus, the objective of the project was the development and implementation of the Heritage Learning Outcomes, a method and framework for planning and evaluation of learning at cultural heritage organisations and also a way of communicating the relevance of learning experiences. The partners have been three museums and three archives in the Nordic and Baltic countries; the Helsinki City Museum, in Finland; the Jamtli regional museum, in Sweden; the Open-Air Museum of Lithuania; the National Archives of Iceland; the Aalborg City Archives, in Denmark; and the Regional State Archives in Trondheim, Norway. In addition to this, the Nordic Centre of Heritage Learning and Creativity (NCK), Sweden, has coordinated the project and the Department of Education at Aarhus University, Denmark, has evaluated the method and the project.

This book should be seen both as a handbook for the method and as an inspiration. It contains a chapter describing the method, followed by six chapters describing how different museums and archives have used the method in connection to adult learning. The chapters reflect a wide range of approaches to learning and give examples of many engaging projects and programmes which demonstrate the ways in which the Heritage Learning Framework can be used and adapted. The last chapter is a concluding chapter, evaluating the efficiency of the method. With this book, we hope to inspire others to use the method, which we believe is a way of making cultural heritage institutions more relevant to individuals and to society by focusing on the effects and outcomes of learning.

Vernacular networked digital photographs shared through social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter have now, by far, replaced analog photographs and traditional photo albums. For museums and archives, the change of media implies that receiving physical vernacular photographic objects will soon be a thing of the past. The social media photograph is ephemeral and needs to be collected through an active effort, not long after the creation of the photograph. It is an assemblage of image, text, metadata, and affected by the digital network in which it is shared. This paper will discuss current findings and reflections of the ongoing research project titled "Collecting Social Photo" which is a cooperation between a number of museums, archives, and universities in the Nordic countries. Findings will be illustrated through case studies reflecting social photography from a personal perspective (Social Media Diaries), the production of the image of places (the city of Södertälje, Sweden and Aalborg, Denmark), and as the reaction to sudden events such as the Stockholm terrorist attack in 2017. As the visual representation of the social digital photograph is not sufficient to understand the challenges of the memory institutions when collecting and disseminating contemporary photographic heritage, the project includes studies of metadata and the material practices in which the photograph is produced. This paper will share insight into the complexity of the social digital photograph, which has been studied by (among others) Nancy Van House (2016), Edgar Gómez Cruz, and Asko Lehmuskallio (2016), and regard it from the perspective of memory institutions through the experience of case studies with a focus on audience engagement, work practices, and digital infrastructures for collecting social digital photography.  - find the paper here MW18: MW 2018.https://mw18.mwconf.org/paper/collecting-the-ephemeral-social-media-photograph-for-the-future-why-museums-and-archives-need-embrace-new-work-practices-for-photography-collections/

In a social digital world, the role of photography has changed dramatically. Today a large number of photographs are found on social media and the Internet, and many photographs are stored in smartphones. This change has profound implications for museums and archives. From being static, clearly delimited and regarded as memories, art or documentation, photographs have become intensely social and are often part of an ongoing online dialogue. They are born both social and digital.   Connect to Collect shares the results of the Nordic research project Collecting Social Photo (2017–2020), which has explored the collection of social digital photography in new and innovative ways. The anthology consists of four parts, starting with a conceptual framing, followed by the results from eleven case studies, using a variety of collection methods. New collecting interfaces are presented, including a prototype developed in the project. The last part is a set of recommendations and a tool kit for museums and archives.   A central purpose of Connect to Collect is to inspire future efforts. It points out how social digital photographs can be an important (re)source for history research and cultural heritage. It also discusses how such photography collections may be of considerable value to museums and archives in the near future: as a public arena for knowledge exchange, collaboration and interaction between institutions, contributors and the public.

Connect to Collect shares the results of the Nordic research project Collecting Social Photo (2017-2020), which has explored the collection of social digital photography in new and innovative ways. The anthology consist of 278 pages well illustrated with social digital photos. It can also be downloaded from DiVA portal (a Swedish finding tool for research publications and student theses) http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:1429411

Connect to Collect shares the results of the Nordic research project Collecting Social Photo (2017-2020), which has explored the collection of social digital photography in new and innovative ways. The anthology consist of 278 pages well illustrated with social digital photos.

It can also be downloaded from DiVA portal (a Swedish finding tool for research publications and student theses) http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:1429411


Connect to Collect consists of four parts. The first part provides a conceptual framework for social digital photography in relation to the collection of visual cultural heritage.


In Chapter 1 Anna Dahlgren reviews current research in the field and frames the implications for collecting social digital photography, by raising questions around ethics, the roles of museums and archives as providers of long-term commitment and open sources, and as providers of context.


In Chapter 2 Lisa Ehlin discusses the practices and expressions of images, primarily among younger generations. She discusses the very realness of online social life for digital natives, and how sharing has become a way to see and be seen.


In Chapter 3, Paula Uimonen summarises survey results from the research project, framed in a discussion on social media photography and digital cultural heritage. The chapter outlines the holistic approach of the project and insights gained from its innovative efforts in collecting digital visual heritage.


The second part presents the 11 case studies carried out by the project team (Elisabeth Boogh, Kajsa Hartig, Bente Jensen, Anni Wallenius). The chapters in this part are categorised into three relevant themes to explore, based on the theory of social photography as well as the practices of the institutions.


The themes are: places, practices and events. A central part of the case studies has been to examine the entire process of collecting, from idea and planning to collecting and acquisition, to identify critical points where new methods challenge existing work practices as well as opportunities where online collecting could benefit the museum or archive in a much broader sense than just developing photography collections.

The third part presents new collecting interfaces. Chapter 7 discusses the development of a new prototype web app for collecting social digital photography. The web app is open source and can be downloaded from GitHub and is discussed more thoroughly in the next blog post.

Chapter 8 explores image recognition as a feature of collecting processes. Arran Rees writes about the experiments made in the project by running images collected in the case studies through three different image recognition services to explore their usefulness in regards to social digital photography collections.

The fourth part concludes the anthology and presents a set recommendations and a toolkit for collecting designed to support museums and archives wishing to initiate collecting projects. It is uploaded separetly.

http://collectingsocialphoto.nordiskamuseet.se/