Cost of Online Collections

Dear Mr Zamborini

Thank you for your request for information about our online collections.
Your request was received on 10 February 2009 and I am dealing with it
under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if that is the case, I
will let you know. A fees notice will be issued to you, and you will be
required to pay before we will proceed to deal with your request.

If you have any queries about this email, please contact me.

Yours sincerely
Polly Parry
FOI Coordinator

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Dear Mr Zambonini

Further to your request for information about our online collections, it
would be helpful if you could provide some clarification to assist our
response.

Could you please define what exactly you mean by 'online collections'?
Is this all the databases of information about our collections, whether
specimens, Library or Archives material, which can be consulted online?
As browsable from here
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/c...
=collections with the exception of the Library catalogue and the
Archives catalogue which can both be accessed via www.nhm.ac.uk/library.
Some but by no means all of these databases include an image of the
specimen as part of the record.

Or - as you specifically exclude digitisation costs - are you referring
just to items that have been digitised/photographed and can actually be
viewed on the website? For example, the Wallace Collection pages
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/colle...
lection/index.jsp or the online exhibitions
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/onlin...

It would be helpful, in order that the relevant reports can be run, if
you could indicate which pages or sections you are interested in
obtaining page views statistics for. The areas you might wish to
consider are likely to be under the Nature Online and Research &
Curation areas on our website.

In addition, could you specify over what period you are interested in
the average number of views being calculated - say 6 months, or a year?
If these page views include all the databases, please bear in mind that
any calculation of the average number of views is likely to be affected
by the fact that databases are being added to the website on an ongoing
basis so it will not necessarily be a direct comparison.

Yours sincerely
Polly Parry
FOI Coordinator

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Dear Mr. Zambonini,

I am responding on behalf of Polly Parry, FOI Co-ordinator. Thank you
for providing that information.

Polly is currently dealing with your request and shall get back to you
once the information you refer to has been obtained.

All the Best,

Lisa

Lisa McCarthy Assistant Archivist and Records Manager
(on behalf of Polly Parry, FOI co-ordinator)

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Dear Dan

Thank you for the clarification to your original request of 10 February
regarding the costs relating to our online collections. To address your
questions in order:

1) How much it cost to put your collections online?

I'm afraid we do not have the answer to this question as the Museum has
been putting information about our collections online since around 1995.
This is an ongoing rolling programme, and usually absorbed into core
staff costs. Each year Interactive Media and Science Group agree which
databases will be developed for the web, based on Science and corporate
priorities. This work is continuing with the Museum's collections
management system, KE-EMu, currently being rolled out across the Museum.
KE-EMu both incorporates existing databases and allows new cataloguing
to be done to a consistent level, and then made available via the
website.

2) How many page views, on average, the online collections receive per
month? (clarified to the last 6 months)

The attached reports and corresponding CSV files show the number of page
views over the past 6 months on the collections pages available through
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/c...
=collections

3) How much it cost to make your collections available to
cross-institutional projects?

The Museum is involved in a wide range of cross-institutional,
international online projects. As a result I'm afraid we cannot answer
this question since to identify every project the Museum is or has been
involved in and to establish the costs involved (some cumulative, some
stand-alone) would take more than the "appropriate time" under the FOI
Act. Just some of the projects the Museum contributes or has contributed
to are listed here:
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Encyclopedia of Life
SYNTHESYS
Europeana
NMOLP (National Museums Online Learning Project)
EDIT (European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy)
GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility)
NBN (National Biodiversity Network)
CATE (Creating a Taxonomic E-Science)
Solanaceae Source

However, Graham Higley, our Head of Library and Information Services,
has offered to meet with you if you would like to come in and discuss
some of these projects further. Please contact me on 020 7942 5507 if
you would like to do this.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your
own purposes, including non-commercial research and for the purposes of
news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication,
would require the permission of the copyright holder, in this case the
Natural History Museum. You must ensure that you gain permission before
reproducing any information.

If you have any queries about this email please contact me. If you are
unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request
and wish to make a complaint or request a review of our decision, you
should write to me in the first instance.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the
ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints
procedure provided by the Natural History Museum. The Information
Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely
Polly Parry
FOI Coordinator

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