Feudal dynamics...infomation management at arts organisations

I've been hunting down performing arts collections online today (don't ask...oh ok, I'll tell you... this relates to another project I am working on regarding mounting an exhibition around one of our 2010 shows. At this stage I'm playing 'kill two birds with one stone', I need a draft exhibition proposal for my last uni assignment, not the new media one, this is another, but I also actually believe in this, shock/horror! and think that 'we' could actually pull this off...) anyhow I digress.

As I did this research today I came across a collection I had never encountered before the Wolanski Foundation. It provided some great links and my research is off and running, but funnily enough, I also stumbled across something related to ideas about information management, a key discussion that has come out of our intranet project meetings. Although it's a bit old, the comments made and the use of the phrase 'feudal dynamics' had me in stitches (you know, the ones that make you actually weep), because basically it rings true....information black hole anyone?

Information Management at [Arts] Organisations

Performing arts organisations, like other types of organisations, are moving through phases in adopting technology. In many, an experimental phase has emphasised business unit interests over the broader needs of organisations.

Feudal dynamics, for example, characterised the adoption of technology at Australia’s cultural flagship, the Sydney Opera House (http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com). At the beginning of the 1990s, after the initial investment in personal computers, lack of coordination, lack of formal controls and inconsistent use of standards led to widespread ambiguity and perpetuated high levels of data redundancy across the organisation. After the purchase of an events management system as the intended hub of a corporate system, subsequent implementation of IT continued to run the gauntlet of competing business unit interests, politics, managerial turnover, and wheel reinvention throughout the 1990s.

At the Australian Film Radio and Television School (http://www.aftrs.edu.au), according to Andrew L Urban, research for the school’s 25th anniversary in 1998 was tortuous because of past information management failures. From 1988-1993, the school maintained the mere semblance of order in recordkeeping and “the reliability and thoroughness of data maintained prior to computerisation was a sad and sorry thing.” Deficiencies in files and data systems were partly overcome by drawing on library resources and the corporate memory of library staff.

The development, at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (http://abc.net.au), of more than twenty separate systems for managing radio and television programs, sound effects, library and archive materials, film preservation, rights management and other functions is indicative of a feudal past that the ABC is now working to address.

In the mid-1990s, government policies and guidelines emerged to guide better practices in agencies under their control. These encourage holistic approaches for managing data, records, archives, library resources, publications and other information assets to reduce duplicate effort and data redundancy. The NSW Information Management and Technology Blueprint, Information Management Framework and other policies on the website of the NSW Government Chief Information Office (http://www.oit.nsw.gov.au/) are examples. Legislation, the international standard AS ISO 15489, and guidelines, such as the Australian and NSW versions of the Dirks Manual, have reinforced more stringent, auditable requirements for managing records.

The success of these regimes is unclear. Government recordkeeping audits report a degree of compliance, but they also point to failures in capturing records, limited control over electronic records, lack of formal disposal protocols and other deficiencies. The status of IT governance as today’s Hot Topic indicates that messages about best practice are taking time to sink in. If Library and Archive Canada’s Information Management Capacity Check Tool and Methodology were used to measure progress towards maturity, the likelihood is that many organisations will attract low scores on managing information contexts, capabilities and quality.

In performing arts organisations, as in the organisations of other industries, challenges persist in handling information strata, islands of information, and information black holes.