opening up the finnish museum statistics data
TRANSCRIPT
Opening up
the Finnish museum statistics data
EGMUS Conference, 2nd & 3rd November 2015, The Hague
Aura Kivilaakso & Tapani Sainio
Scope of the Finnish museum statistics
Includes:
• 152 professional museums that are run on a full-time basis
Does not include:
• About 1000 local museums that are not considered ”professional” (statistical information collected approx. every 5 years)
• World heritage sites (information collected in Cultural statistics by Statistics Finland)
• Nature centres and Science centres
New online service
Launched in March 2015:
• The questionnaire, data, tables and publications at https://www.museotilasto.fi/
Aims of the renewal project:
• More efficient data collecting process
• Better usability of the online service
• Increased use of statistics
New online service 2014
THE MUSEUM SUBMITS ITS ANNUAL INFORMATION
New online service 2014
WE CHECK THE ANSWERS SUBMITTED BY MUSEUMS
THE DATA CAN BE
SEARCHED BY MUSEUM, PROVINCE, YEAR, TYPE OR
OWNERSHIP OF THE
MUSEUM ETC.
IN ADDITION TO SEARCH FUNCTIONALITY, WE PROVIDE PRINTED AND PDF
PUBLICATIONS AND TABLES.
Publishing the statistics data as open data
• The need to boost the use of statistical data
• Juridical consultation (Act on the Openness of Government Activities, Personal Data Act)
• Choosing the license: CC-BY 4.0 (promoted by Finnish public administration)
• Consulting the museums and asking for permission
• Technical solution: freely downloadable xls and csv tables
Benefits of the open museum statistics data
• User-friendly way of providing data
• Increased interest from media, other public authorities and open data community
• Transparency of governance and finance
• Possibility to combine and compare statistic information with other information
• More independent use of data; no ‘vendor lock-in’ situations
Digitization and museum statistics
Problems/ unclarities:
• What is a digitized object?
• Measuring the web presence of museum and online interaction with the users
