Working with the Arts Council England, the Collections Trust has created a service called the 'Culture Grid' that is designed to help cultural, heritage and arts organisations share their collections openly online while managing risk and cost. The Culture Grid is effectively a 'staging post' into which you can put your digital content, and from which you can decide how you want it to be made openly available.
The Collections Trust has already worked with 140 heritage organisations to open up 1.7m 'collections records' (information about objects in museum and gallery collections) in this way. The key to this service is that it allows you to manage how you open up your content, and to do so in a way that is safe, sustainable and which minimises the risk to your organisation.
Through the SPECTRUM Partners Scheme, the Culture Grid is already compatible with 15 of the leading Collections Management Software providers, providing you with a simple and risk-free path to opening up your collections information.
The simplest way to demonstrate your commitment to open content in your HLF bid is to commit to sharing your digital content through the Culture Grid. To find out how this works, and what you need to do to open up your content, contact the Grid Manager at phill@collectionstrust.org.uk. You can also download guidance on how to make your content available through the Culture Grid from http://www.culturegrid.org.uk/add-to-grid/.
