The Year in Perspective 2007-2008

Message from the Director General

Technologies at the service of a dynamic network

The Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) provides a window to the world of Canadian museums.

CHIN is a national centre of excellence that has, as its mission, to help member institutions become better in the digital field. This sturdy network of over 1,300 members aims to facilitate research, professional development and the creation and presentation of Canadian digital heritage content. Those are our main objectives, and it is around these that we have structured this report.

CHIN's mission became even more important in 2007-2008, with the addition of over 171,226 new entries in Artefacts Canada, 21 new virtual exhibits and 44 new Community Memories added in the Virtual Museum of Canada's portal. The latter is visited by millions of Internet users every year. These achievements of the utmost quality have been recognized on numerous occasions on a local, national and international scale.

CHIN maintains close ties with the heritage community, providing skills development resources and tools for museum professionals. Museum workers have been exploring and using these tools, such as social networking, to engage new audiences in the museum experience. In addition, the unique perspective and expertise of museum professionals is essential to the development of cutting edge research into digital technologies.

The ongoing collaboration between CHIN and its museum members has resulted in the creation of a wealth of cultural content, available to Canadians and the world.

CHIN support enables our museum network in the use of digital technologies, assisting our members to preserve and present their vast collections. As a national centre of excellence, CHIN encourages and promotes research, partnering with universities, museums and the private sector. This collaborative work results in the creation of new innovative tools for the production of digital content.

CHIN is proud to foster this creativity and to develop innovative technological initiatives so that, together, we can overcome great challenges and take full advantage of the opportunities that result from our evolution.

Gabrielle Blais
Director General
Canadian Heritage Information Network

CHIN Mission

A national centre of excellence, CHIN enables Canada's museums to engage audiences through the use of innovative technologies.

In order to fulfill its mission, CHIN:

• Moblilize and supports
• Develops ad provides skills development products and services for heritage professionals
• Supports the development, presentation and marketing of digital heritage content.

Membership Statistics

By the end of the fiscal year, CHIN membership stood at 1,297. This is an increase of 66 members, or 5%, from last year and represents approximately half of all Canadian museums, galleries, and heritage organizations.

CHIN membership provides heritage institutions with enhanced skills to create, present, and preserve Canadian content online. As a result, CHIN members are well positioned to engage Canadian and worldwide audiences effectively through the use of information and communication technologies.

CHIN's Member Services team offers ongoing support to members through response to e-mail and telephone enquiries. CHIN's help desk received a total of 1,977 e-mails (service messages) this past year, an increase of 8% from the previous year, and 503 help desk phone calls, an increase of 6% from last year.

Results Analysis: CHIN Website Visits

In 2007-2008, the CHIN website received more than 4,400,000 visits, the highest annual number to date, and an 8% increase from last year.

Conference Participation

In addition to increasing and improving CHIN's online presence, CHIN staff have met with many members directly, participating in numerous conference sessions, delivering workshops, and providing product and service demonstrations. At conference information booths, CHIN's staff of heritage professionals addressed questions and concerns from members on various topics,

Museology students and heritage professionals entering the field gained a greater awareness of CHIN and its services through outreach presentations and workshops.

In addition to supporting the creation of virtual exhibitions, the VMC Investment Program contributed to several innovative educational resources, available through the VMC Teachers' Centre. CHIN worked closely with museum educators and teachers in order to promote these educational resources by participating in several educational conferences.

Artefacts Canada Contributors, Records, Images and Visits

Artefacts Canada is an online inventory of artefacts and specimens housed in Canadian museums. Canada was the first country to work with the heritage community to develop a national inventory with a single point of access to Canadian museum holdings, and it has been a model for other countries. Canadian and international heritage professionals consult the Humanities and the Natural Sciences databases regularly for research and for exhibition planning.

In 2007-2008, CHIN member institutions uploaded 171,226 records to the Artefacts Canada databases. Of these, 39,363 contained images of artefacts. These additions bring the total number of Artefacts Canada holdings to 3,402,362 object records of which 629,207 have images. These records reflect a range of disciplines, including decorative arts, fine arts, ethnology, history, and natural sciences.

Special Projects with Museums

Working closely with several provincial museums associations and community museums, CHIN developed a strategy for members to document, manage, and digitize key works in their collections. Participating members were able to produce substantially enriched records that included contextual information on the works' history and significance. The records were then added to Artefacts Canada, for the benefit of researchers and the public. All records with images appear automatically in the VMC Image Gallery. The benefits for museums were threefold: implementation of a strategy, enhanced records for internal use, and the means to reach wider audiences.

Special projects were carried out with the following provincial museum associations:

• Federation of Nova Scotian Heritage (FNSH)
• Museums Association of Newfoundland & Labrador (MANL)
• Ontario Museum Association (OMA)
• Société des musées québécois (SMQ)
• Yukon Historical and Museums Association (YHMA)

Young Canada Works Interns

The federal Young Canada Works (YCW) program offers paid internships that allow students and recent graduates to put their skills into practice and gain valuable industry experience. CHIN facilitated the placement of 21 Young Canada Works (YCW) interns in 14 associations and heritage institutions. Interns assisted their employers with web development, research, and cataloguing practices as they relate to CHIN projects such as Artefacts Canada, Community Memories, and the Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage (DOCAM) partnership.

The following institutions participated in the YCW program in 2007-2008:

• Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
• Federation of Nova Scotian Heritage
• Community Museum Association of PEI
• Fondation Daniel Langlois, pour l'art, la science et la technologie
• McCord Museum of Canadian History
• Millet & District Museum
• Museums Association of Newfoundland & Labrador
• Oboro
• Ontario Museum Association
• Royal Ontario Museum
• Société des musées québécois
• The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
• Trinity Historical Society
• University of Alberta Museums, Department of Anthropology

New Content in the Knowledge Exchange

The Knowledge Exchange focuses on social networking technologies (such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and RSS) and their relevance to museum work. The KX's online courses and communities of practice have added significantly to museum workers' ability to connect with each other and with their audiences.

In 2007-2008, several “Access to Experts” interviews and panel discussions on a broad range of subjects were added to the KX:

Interviews:

• Insight on Issues Surrounding Intellectual Property, Rina Pantalony, Author of Guide on Managing Intellectual Property for Museums
• Digitization Guidelines, Louise Renaud from the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and Kathleen Brosseau from the Canadian War Museum
• Collection X and the Term 'Open Source Museum', Colin Wiginton, Art Gallery of Ontario
• Podcasting Experience and Practices, Jean-François Gauvin, Webmaster of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ)
• Web Accessibility , Brian Kelly, UKOLN (UK)
• Canada's First Museum Blog, Jim Millar, Curator of Port Moody Station Museum
• Emily Carr Exhibit, Ian Thom, Senior Curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Online courses and best practices:

• Museums Learning 2.0: the basics of Web 2.0 technologies for museums.
• Search Engine Marketing: introduction to content marketing and technical tips designed to increase institutional website ranking.
• Digitization Standards for the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation: Scan and Artefacts Photography (CMCC).
• Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage (DOCAM) 2007 Annual Summit conference notes.
• Digital Cultural Content Forum (DCCF) 2007: online presentations made by CHIN staff on best practices and new online technologies.

Results Analysis: Virtualmuseum.ca visit Percentage Increase

The Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC) website is dedicated to engaging audiences of all ages in Canada's diverse cultural heritage. Through strong partnerships between the Department of Canadian Heritage and Canada's museum community, the VMC succeeds in offering innovative multimedia content to Canadians. This year alone, the VMC enjoyed its highest annual record, attracting 12,566,984 visitors, an increase of 9% from last year.

New Virtual Exhibits Launched

The virtual exhibits are developed from original research by museum staff and communities, and are enhanced by images from member museums from across Canada. By the end of this fiscal year, 120 virtual exhibits, produced through the Virtual Museum of Canada Investment Program, were available at virtualmuseum.ca.

2007-2008 VMC Editorial Board

The VMC Editorial Board is composed of members from across Canada who bring a range of experience and expertise to the table. Members for 2007-2008 were:

Bill Barkley

Museum Consultant/Chair, VMC Editorial Board

Kirstin Evenden

Vice-President, Access, Collections and Exhibits, Glenbow Museum

Claude Faubert

Director, Canada Science and Technology Museum

France Gascon

Director, Musée d'art urbain

Bill Greenlaw

Executive Director, Heritage, Nova Scotia Department of Tourism, Culture & Heritage

Ernie Ingles

Associate Vice-President (Learning Systems) and Chief Librarian, University of Alberta

Sarah Irwin

Managing Director, Independent Learning Centre, TVO

Carol Kaye

Education Technology Specialist

Benoit Légaré

Vice-President, Montreal Science Centre

Jim Marsh

Editor-in-chief, Canadian Encyclopedia

Hélène Nadeau

Head of Education and Community Programmes, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Virtual Exhibit Proposals Accepted

The Virtual Museum of Canada's Investment Program accepted 12 proposals for new virtual exhibits this year. These projects will receive development assistance and will be launched in the VMC in 2008-2009.

Community Memories Exhibits Launched

The Community Memories Program is aimed at small museums - often operated by volunteers – and supports the development of online local history exhibits. Working with their communities, museums present their stories and treasures, capturing and sharing the memories with Canadians and international audiences. By the end of the 2007-2008 fiscal year, 282 exhibits were available at virtualmuseum.ca.

The map above presents the cities, towns and villages from which the Virtual Museum of Canada's more than 400 exhibits originate. While virtual exhibits are developed mostly by urban member institutions, the vast majority of Community Memories exhibits, an initiative created in 2003, has faced exponential growth through local museums located in Canada's rural regions. This is also a strong representation of the VMC Investment Program's achievements since 2001, as well as a clear testimony to the efforts it has put forth in facilitating the presentation of online digital heritage content.

During 2007-2008, Canadian museums launched a total of 44 new Community Memories exhibits, in English and French, an increase of eight from last year.

VMC & KX Awards and Distinctions

In 2007-2008, CHIN and its members received several awards and distinctions:

On April 2007, Pointe-à-Callière, the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History, received the Prix Ulysse for Technology in Tourism at the 22nd annual Grands Prix du tourisme québécois regional awards for Building Montreal. This hybrid online game, developed with support from the VMC Investment Program, combines principles of simulation and quest games (e.g. SimCity, Zelda), guiding visitors through three key periods of Montreal's development.

The VMC Exhibit Tipatshimuna: Innu Stories from the Land , developed in collaboration with The Rooms, Provincial Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador, Innu communities in Labrador and Quebec, and several CHIN member institutions, was presented with the “Prix Web'Art d'Or de l'exposition virtuelle” by the International Committee for audio-visual, images and sound new technologies (AVICOM).

The Musée du Fjord was awarded the 2007 Grand Prix du tourisme québécois in the “fewer than 100,000 visitors” category.

In May 2007, the interactive learning exhibit 1759: From the War Path to the Plains of Abraham, developed by the National Battlefields Commission, received the Télé-Québec audiovisual and multimedia award from the Société des musées québécois.

In October 2007, the Knowledge Exchange was awarded the Gold Medal in the Information Management category at the federal Government Technology Exhibition and Conference (GTEC) Distinction Awards.