Digital Treasures

Based on the Decade Summary interface of the Australian Prints and Printmaking collection | Watch video

Digital Solutions that show the true depth of Cultural Collections

Taking people beyond the search box to explore the hidden treasures of digital cultural collections

University of Canberra researchers are translating complex digital data into rich and engaging displays. Dr Mitchell Whitelaw, Dr Geoff Hinchcliffe and teaching fellow Ben Ennis Butler are part of the research team at the University leading the "Digital Treasures" program.

The main focus of the team's current research is digital cultural heritage. Over the past decade, galleries, libraries and museums have been working to digitise their collections and make them available online. This hugely important change promises to open up these collections to new audiences and new uses.

"However this also brings with it some big challenges," Dr Whitelaw says. "How do we understand what's in these massive digital troves of artworks, documents and objects?"

Up until now, the most common solution has been to use search - a familiar and powerful tool. However search assumes that users have a specific queryin mind and it discourages browsing and exploration. Dr Whitelaw and his colleagues are working on creating rich alternatives to search-based interfaces.

"Our interfaces are live experiments that are changing the way cultural institutions think about their digital collections"

Dr Whitelaw explains the aim of their research: "We want to enable people to explore a digital collection like we explore a physical museum; to browse and discover connections without needing to know what they are looking for. We call these generous interfaces because they offer more than search alone." Dr Whitelaw's team is making strong headway. "One of our key methods is to treat digital collections as rich datasets, and use data visualisation techniques to reveal their hidden patterns and structures," he says.

Working with the National Gallery of Australia's Prints and Printmaking collection, the researchers have developed three experimental interfaces that show what's possible. "Our Decade Summary interface reveals the whole collection of 40,000 works – breaking it down by decade and type."

Dr Whitelaw and his colleagues have worked in collaboration with the National Museum, the National Library, the National Archives and the National Gallery of Australia. Their latest project for Canberra Museum and Gallery showcases the iconic works of Sidney Nolan; a new project for the State Library of Queensland is also underway.

PhD candidate Ben Ennis Butler says:

"Our research revolves around building interfaces that encourage open ended exploration and discovery within cultural heritage collections."