Preserving cultural heritage: Better together!

The Swiss National Library has a mandate to collect, catalogue, store and disseminate the cultural heritage created in Switzerland and abroad by and about the Swiss, both in print and digital. This sounds like a clear enough mission, but dig deeper and this mandate raises all sorts of tough questions. What exactly is cultural heritage? Obviously, it goes far beyond e-books and e-journals of well-established Swiss publishers. It is Swiss websites, newsletters of Swiss societies, and so on. However, what about all the digital data that is created by Swiss people every waking moment? The selfies, blogs, tweets, social media, personal digital archives. Surely not everything can be considered cultural heritage. But who decides what is and what isn’t? And then how do we cope with the enormous quantity of information being produced? How can we decide what to keep for future generations when we cannot even cope with the output of the current generation? Not to mention the costs. With budgets being cut all the time, what does that mean for our cultural heritage? Amidst all these tough questions, one thing is clear: no single institution can possibly cope with collecting all that information nor be tasked with the decision on what to preserve and what not. This paper will use the example of Web Archive Switzerland to show how trust and interoperability have led to constructive collaboration. Web Archive Switzerland was born in 2008 following 5 years of discussion with the cantonal libraries. Since then websites with a bearing on Switzerland have been selected, documented, preserved and disseminated collaboratively among 30 Swiss institutions. The key lesson learned over the past 14 years is that to answer the tough questions and challenges we had to look beyond our own walls and borders. We learned to let go of the idea that we can do it alone, that we can control the world of content through clever curation. We learned how to create partnerships and strong networks of institutions, how to engage new sorts of curators, how to trust each other and share synergies and costs, all with the common goal of saving as much digital heritage as possible. In summary, this paper is a call to arms to join forces, to forge partnerships, to bundle competences, and to build collaborative networks! It will show that curating collaboration between institutions is as important as curating cultural heritage and it will suggest ways forward to create more collaborative collections of digital cultural heritage within Switzerland and beyond.

瑞士国家图书馆（Swiss National Library）肩负着收集、编目、保存并传播涵盖瑞士境内及海外、由瑞士人创作或涉及瑞士群体的印刷版与数字文化遗产的使命。这项使命看似清晰明确，但深究之下便会引出诸多棘手问题。究竟何为文化遗产？显然，其范畴远不止成熟瑞士出版社的电子书与电子期刊，还包括瑞士本土网站、瑞士社团通讯等。然而，瑞士民众日常每时每刻产生的各类数字数据又该如何界定？比如自拍照片、博客、推文、社交媒体内容及个人数字档案。绝非所有内容都可被视作文化遗产，那么应由谁来划定这一界限？再者，我们该如何应对海量涌现的信息？连当代产出的信息都难以妥善处理，又如何抉择为后世留存哪些内容？更不必提成本问题。随着预算持续缩减，这将对我们的文化遗产保护工作带来何种影响？在诸多棘手的难题之中，有一点毋庸置疑：没有任何单一机构能够包揽所有信息的收集工作，也无法肩负起判定哪些内容应予保存、哪些应当舍弃的重任。
本文以瑞士网络档案馆（Web Archive Switzerland）为例，阐释信任与互操作性（interoperability）如何促成了富有建设性的协作。瑞士网络档案馆于2008年成立，此前历经五年与各州图书馆的磋商论证。自成立以来，30家瑞士机构携手合作，完成了与瑞士相关的网站的遴选、归档、保存与传播工作。过去14年间我们汲取的核心经验在于：要解决这些棘手的问题与挑战，我们必须打破机构壁垒与地域边界。我们摒弃了“单打独斗即可掌控内容世界”的想法，不再妄图凭借精妙的策展手段管控所有内容。我们学会了如何构建机构间的伙伴关系与稳固网络，如何吸纳新型策展主体，如何实现彼此信任、共享协同收益与成本，所有这些努力都围绕着一个共同目标：尽可能多地留存数字文化遗产。
总而言之，本文呼吁各方携手合作，缔结伙伴关系，整合专业能力，构建协作网络！本文将阐明，机构间的协作策展与文化遗产策展同等重要，并将为瑞士境内乃至全球范围内构建更多数字文化遗产协作馆藏提供可行路径。