Digital footprints and search pathways: working with National Collections in Scotland during Covid19 lockdown to design future online provision

Lead Research Organisation: University of Strathclyde
Department Name: Computer and Information Sciences

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting every aspect of daily life, including the human need to connect to collections held at museums and galleries. The timing of the pandemic has been particularly damaging for Scotland's 409 museums and galleries. A clear understanding of how people access national collections online can make cultural institutions better prepared for digital service provisions in general, and especially for a crisis situation should there be another lockdown for COVID-19 or a similar catastrophe. This project will undertake a longitudinal study of the digital footprints of users in two national collections - National Museums of Scotland and National Galleries of Scotland - over a 12-month period to investigate: how people engaged with heritage collections during the lockdown and post-lockdown period; whether the lockdown changed digital access patterns; which collections/objects drew more users; and where users are accessing these, for example, through the institutions' websites, or through external platforms like Google Arts and Culture, Youtube, etc. This will lead to a short term impact by informing future policy decisions on the most effective digital platforms for national collections, and how the knowledge of online access patterns can be used to design search pathways that can lead to an ontology-based approach to linking collections combining the user search terms and semantics-based representations of the collections/items accessed. This can make a long term contribution to heritage collection data standards, particularly what data is recorded at object level, something similar to what CETAF (cetaf.org) is achieving for natural history specimens.
 
Description Sessions for access to cultural heritage were at their highest in lockdown during the period leading up to Christmas (Oct-Dec 2020) ~20,000 more per month for NGS; NMS ~40,000 more in December only. Unique user percentage was slightly greater across both organisations during lockdown, demonstrating a lack of retention. Pageviews also followed the same trend as sessions and users. NGS peaked at ~210,000 more views in December during lockdown. Three of the four blocks analysed for NGS had unique view percentages at the highest rates (typically above 78%). Two of the four block in NMS had unique pageview percentages at the lowest rates (68-77%). Collection views were higher in lockdown across 10 of the 12 months for NGS and all for NMS. NGS received at least 60,000 views more across five of the months. NMS' unique collection view percentage was quite a bit lower than NGS (60-66% compared to 83-85%), meaning users were more inclined to return to pages. NGS users spent more time on the site during the festive period - between 140 and 160 seconds in Oct to Dec (highest rates) compared to 120-140 the rest of year. NMS users spent consistently more time on the site from April to November (140-160 seconds) and consistently less time from January to March (100 to 120 seconds). Organic search was responsible for over 60% of traffic across both organisations. It was also more popular during lockdown for at least 9 of the months analysed.
NGS access via email was more popular across 9 of the 12 months analysed (between 2.31 and 6.94% of traffic) NGS had more traffic from social media during the second half of lockdown (highest or 2nd highest rates Sept to Mar ranging from 4.93% to 9.34%) whereas NMS had more at the start (highest Apr to July 7.1% to 10.1%). Access to the site via direct search was quite a bit higher than the rates received by NGS. The percentage share ranged from 14.9% to 28.5% and was consistently the highest across the four years analysed except July, February and March. Desktop was the most popular device used in at least 9 of the 12 months across each site.
NGS Referrals from Facebook were at their highest during the period in lockdown leading up to Christmas. October was the most popular month with over 17,000 referrals, ~10,000 more than previous years. NMS referrals from Facebook were lowest in lockdown compared to the previous years for the following months June to October 20210 and January to March 2021. NMS Referrals from Twitter were often in the middle of the pack during lockdown compared to previous years. The only exceptions were April (at least 700 more) and June to September (lowest).
The number of items available to external sites does not necessarily translate to more views. Referrals back to the NMS site were consistently high for Wikimedia (>1000) and consistently low for Google Arts (approaching 0). External links back to the host sites are easily accessible for Google Arts & Culture and ArtUK.
Exploitation Route By sharing the findings and observations with the partner cultural heritage institutions and the sector at large.
Sectors Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
URL https://zenodo.org/record/6624800#.ZAHsHj3P02w
 
Description Towards a National Collection, Covid-19 Urgency Project Seminar 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact An online seminar was held on 7th March 2022 to share findings from a 12-month TaNC Covid19 Urgency project. Beginning with an welcome and overview of the project presented by two project partners, the seminar presented the key findings and discussed their implications for the two partner cultural heritage institutions as well as the wider cultural heritage sector. The key points discussed included the following:
1. a glimpse of the key findings on online access to cultural heritage content and collections at the national Museums of Scotland (NMS) and National Galleries of Scotland (NGS)
2. Critical comments on the findings, focussing particularly on (a) how people accessed cultural heritage content using the NMS and NGS websites as well as through various partner platforms like Wikimedia, Art UK, etc., and how this could inform the content sharing strategy of the institutions; (b) access to cultural heritage content related contemporary topics of discussions and their implications for future digital strategy; and (c) user behaviour with regard to search term selection and use for accessing cultural heritage content and their implications for the institutions and the sector at large in relation to cataloguing and indexing/metadata standards, etc.
Following this, the project team and the audience engaged in in-depth discussions on how the findings can inform strategy decisions for National Museums Scotland and National Galleries Scotland, as well as broader heritage organisations, regarding the most effective ways to share collections online and whether knowledge of online access can be used to design effective search pathways that can lead to an ontology-based approach to linking collections.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://digitalfootprints.cis.strath.ac.uk/?p=46