Interview with Juan Varela, journalist and media consultant, creator of the blog periodistas21

Which good practice cases would you highlight regarding digitalization/digital culture?

There are some interesting projects, however in the last few months the project culturagalega.org has especially caught my attention. It is an institution for the promotion of Galician culture within the web: the project is an anthology of Galician poetry of the area of la Costa de la Muerte. It has been edited and developed on the Gogglearth platform; it allows the user to access the poems according to geographical referents of the place where they have been conceived. I find it is a very attractive proposal for reading poetry, a very interesting way of linking such an old type of literature with new technologies like semantic maps, mashups and geolocalization, in this case.

Which specifically innovative elements have these types of projects introduced?  

In my view there are three fundamental aspects that these good practice cases must fulfil:

• They must expand the access to information of citizens.
• The contents of the information at the disposal of people, whether they use subscription services or not, must be open, used in a free way and reused. 
• Usability: by this term I mean the way we access these platforms and which grade of usability do the new contents have. I consider this is a fundamental issue at the moment and perhaps we are not paying enough attention to it; especially in certain digitalization projects, which are more focused in transferring information into digital format rather than in obtaining greater usability of the contents. This happens in traditional usability, that is, legibility of the contents, and also in everything related to the possibilities of use in all types of platforms, at least in the main ones accessed by users.

Which sectors and cultural fields are in the avant-garde of digital culture?

Unfortunately, I do not think that any cultural sector is in the avant-garde of digital culture.

However, we have two strong fields in Spain comparing to the international environment: one is the museum initiative and the other is the publishing initiative. Within the field of museums, archives and libraries we have a great quantity of materials of very good quality, but we still have to enhance the value of all these contents within the web. In this sense, there are some interesting reflections and proposals. For example, Borja Villarroel, director of the Reina Sofía Museum proposed some initiatives in order to create a type of total museum or museum unity within the whole state, this means a museum that could be developed within the physical environment as well as in the digital one.

Within the publishing field we are a long way back. These Christmas will be the first in which we can enjoy the presence of the digital book in Spain. Some publishers and libraries have started to commercialize certain titles through digital reading media such as e-book and, although they have mainly focused on being present within the digital field, they have left the debate and the development of the book business and publishing standards of digital books to the side. These standards will allow users to have a clearer idea of where to access information, which media to buy and what they can do, which are their rights and guarantees regarding digital books. Even the business model and the meaning of transferring a part of the savings to the audience and the efficiency of the digital book versus the traditional printed book have also been left out, indeed we are very far back in all these aspects. Our publishing industry is a very strong one, however we have not followed any of the fundamental guidelines in order to begin transferring all the materials of the publishing industries to the digital field: we do not have agreements regarding orphan works, we do not have agreements on the new distribution of intellectual property rights between publishers and authors, we do not have the standard of the electronic book in Spain, etc. Although there is an emergence of a great deal of technologies that can change the cultural industries, we are very far back as far as debates on business standards, guarantees of rights of access for both authors and public, economic rights, etc ... is concerned. I have the feeling that we are always in tow of what is happening outside; we only react whenever the European Union eggs on us whenever google pounces on us with its projects… the market and the great Spanish industry and the great Spanish cultural sector are in the tow at this moment, whereas in certain other fields we have a very powerful and a traditionally very strong industry.

A great effort is being carried out regarding the digitalization of libraries, but I think we are still arriving late; in fact, the reports of the European Commission still point at us as one of the most backward countries in the field of digitalization, specially regarding the digitalization of public contents, that is, archives and public libraries.

Digitalization is very irregular in the field of museums; not many museums have started digital projects which really help citizens reaching the museums and their contents through the web. There has been an important attempt as far as the big national museums is concerned, but we still need interactive ways and channels with the public; we need a specific museum proposal for the web and for the user who accesses museums through the web.

One of our main lacks is related to the inclusion and access of public contents within the web, both regarding digital culture (although some efforts have been made in this field) on the one hand, and regarding registries, documents and public contents on the other hand; these are often more related to the management of cultural contents rather than to the link to cultural contents. We are running late in this aspect, the Administration has focused mainly in elements like providing certain fundamental administrative steps, however we still do not have an open Administration or an open access to public contents within the web. In fact, we are still waiting for a law on the access to public information.

An important change can be appreciated these last years with respect to previous years, especially within the audiovisual sector, both public and private; televisions have made an important effort, probably because we have reached a point where almost everyone is convinced about the convergence of screens and in this sense there has been an integration and a quantitatively different proposal of contents to what we have had up to now. Some indications of explorations to develop alternative televisions in the web using tools like 2.0 web, social networks, formats, etc., which differ from conventional television, have also started to show up.

In short, we are a long way behind regarding cultural proposals and digitalization of materials and also regarding promotion. I find it very striking that the publications which gather cultural proposals (that is, newspapers, cultural publicity boards, cultural agendas), do not publish the information of the cultural spaces which offer cultural proposals within the web. Another example: when we speak about a museum we refer to the building and to the installations but we never refer to its proposal within the digital environment. This situation can be extrapolated to other spaces outside the web; for example, we are experiencing an explosion of applications for mobile telephones, which are very useful when we go out to enjoy certain cultural contents, or in the case of cultural tourism, for example. However, the most important cultural institutions in Spain have not developed this type of applications yet. There are no projects, nor specific cultural exhibitions for the web which go beyond the limits; at the most we can mention two or three institutions, all with small future prospects. This situation is probably due to defects in the origin, but also due to fact that not enough value is given to the media which give cultural information.

Which new needs are these projects generating (professional profiles, continuous education, productive routines, work organization, etc.)?

Digitalization is certainly bringing changes in certain fields and as a consequence new education needs, new work organization needs, etc. is required.  In my opinion, all this is deeply related to three main elements:

• Technological aspect: technology and its constant development is favouring the transition of traditional publishing structures, archives, or everything that has to do with a traditional management of digital contents, towards a situation in which professional profiles need to incorporate this technology which is affecting almost all the disciplines of the cultural management. Obviously, I do not think that all the people working on cultural management have to be experts in these technologies, but I do consider that their education must progressively incorporate those elements and fundamental principles in order to manage and handle these new technologies, i.e. standards, usability studies and anything related to new formats, new ways of visualizing and accessing information, beyond the specific technologies which are constantly and rapidly changing. In this sense, I think we are a long way back in offering the appropriate education, and this is not only applicable to the cultural sector, but also to other professions which are also affected by technological changes.
• Legal aspect: management of intellectual property, author’s rights and anything related to public contents in Spain come from a tradition which needs to be updated. The greatest failure in the last three years, since the changes introduced to the law on intellectual property is that, on the one hand, national legislation and autonomous legislation have not managed to harmonize, and on the other hand, this legislative gap affects the technological development of public contents, public domain, etc. In this sense, a sensation of insecurity can be perceived in the whole sector, both in the public and in the private sector; most of the professionals in this field are confused and waiting to see where the sector is evolving. A reflection is needed, much more information and a greater vocation in the field of culture; the public domain and the commons need to be strengthened, and I think commons are fundamental in a country like ours.
• As far as processes, productive routines and organization of the work is concerned, I think there are two fundamental aspects: on the one hand, the tools and technology we have spoken about before; on the other hand, the importance of integrating the public into managing the cultural contents and allowing them to actively take part in different moments of the process, from creation to the publication and archive of all these cultural contents, both in specific moments and specific contents, as well as incorporating social criteria. In this sense, we now have or begin to have the tools to incorporate the audience into this management in a more rapid, flexible and effective way than up to now.

Which advantages does digitalization offer to the user?

The most important advantage is to be able to access these contents. The period we are living is beginning to be referred to as the “era of access”. This is a fundamental change compared to what we have lived up to now. At this moment we certainly have the capacities needed to guarantee most of the population a great access to information, contents and culture, as we have never had before. Our great challenge is to make all of this effective, that is, to incorporate quality contents, quality criteria and all we consider valuable culture into this flow of information that people access regularly. In this sense, I think we are a step backwards regarding strictly cultural contents. It is strange how in this country after the explosion of cultural habits of the last decade, museums have experienced an increase in visits, consequently it is becoming an activity that people carry out normally and frequently; however, the number of accesses to museums and archives within the web is very low. What people perceive as something which is at their disposal in real life, do not perceive it yet in the domain of digital contents and Internet. This is due, in my opinion, to a lack of visibility, promotion and knowledge on how to reach the public in a more attractive way. 

While people pour onto the big exhibitions wherever they are held and records of visits are beaten in certain collections year after year, the number of accesses to the webs of museums and libraries is still very small. For example, this week I checked the data of the national library which has the greatest archive on Library and Information Science and works at national and international level, and I have found that it only has a bit more than a million accesses per month; this number is rather small in terms of the dimension of the project and the materials in it. The same happens to other sectors: the great museums in Spain have very few accesses comparing to European museums. Therefore, I consider that it is a great challenge to enhance the value of the management of all these contents whether they belong to the conventional field or not.

There is a second advantage beyond the capacity of access, which we have already mentioned, and which has still not been developed completely; it consists in the possibility of the public interacting with the cultural works. In this sense, certain shy experiences have been carried out, however they are still very limited.

In general, we can say that there have been made more proposals related to access and interaction in physical environments rather in digital ones, this might be due to the fact that greater resources can be reached in the second case.

periodistas21