safeguarding
10. Extent to which research findings and documentation are accessible and are utilized to strengthen policy-making and
improve safeguarding
Guidance note corresponding to indicator 10 of the Overall Results Framework:
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Question 10.1
Are documentation and research findings made accessible to communities, groups and individuals, while respecting customary practices governing access to specific aspects of ICH?
Some
Provide any additional details here.
The Norwegian Ministry of Culture has overarching national responsibility for archives, libraries and museums. These are important institutions for the documentation of Norway’s cultural heritage. The Sámi Parliament is responsible for the preservation and development of Sámi art and culture. However, the dissemination of Sámi art and culture is not solely the responsibility of the Sámi community. Other archives, library and museum institutions also bear a responsibility of this nature, as part of their mission and role in society.
As the Norwegian Ministry of Culture states in its White Paper (Report to the Storting) No. 8 (2018-2019) on cultural policy for the future, cultural heritage material managed by archives, libraries and museums is an important basis for today’s society because these institutions are bearers and curators of a shared culture and history, both tangible and intangible culture. Ensuring that as much as possible of this material is preserved and made publicly accessible for future generations is therefore a priority task.
For a long time, Norway has been working to make cultural heritage material digitally accessible, so that people can access the same knowledge base. This supports an important democratic principle. The digital solutions are also being developed to provide better access to the information and the cultural heritage as the basis for research, teaching, innovation and product development.
A great deal of work has been done to digitise collections, and this will remain an area of focus in the time ahead. Efforts are also being made to develop databases for
documentation and educational purposes. Most of the databases are expert based, and not based on community involvement. Examples include:
• www.digitaltmuseum.no is a joint database of collections in Norwegian and Swedish museums of art and cultural history. The database comprises ca. 4.4 million items from around 250 museums. The material includes photographs, artefacts, artworks, design objects and buildings. It also provides access to film, video and recorded audio collections.
The objective of the Digital Museum is to make the museums’ collections easily accessible to
all interested parties, irrespective of time and place, and to make the collections easier to use for research and teaching purposes, as well as shared knowledge building.
• www.minner.no Minner.no is a website where museums and archives collect the knowledge, experiences and memories of private individuals. Everyone can take part and contribute stories, photographs and films, which are stored for posterity in a shared memory bank. Minner.no is operated by the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History’s cultural history archive the Norwegian Ethnological Research.
• www.digitalarkivet.no is an online portal for the National Archives of Norway’s digitised archives. The objective is for all users to be able to search and retrieve digital content from state, municipal and private archives from all over the country.
• Norges dokumentarv is the national register established under UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme (https://www.kulturradet.no/norges-dokumentarv). The register is accessible through tailored digital presentation.
• www.nb.no is an online portal to the National Library of Norway's collections. The National Library of Norway collects, registers and preserves everything that is published in Norway.
The collection contains works of literature and music, broadcast material and private archives. The music collections contain sound recordings, printed musical scores, musical manuscripts, documentation and archives deriving from private individuals and
organisations. For example, the National Library of Norway acts as a national archive for traditional music in Norway.
• www.tv.nrk.no/programmer/nrk-arkivet Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK) is the state-owned public broadcasting company that provides media content on radio, television and the internet, as well as via its own streaming service. NRK's archive, which is accessible online, contains documentary series and information about Sámi culture and history, and
programmes about national minorities. It also provides general information about ICH, in the form of folk music and dance, selected craft traditions and place name traditions. The
archive is open to the public.
• Lokalhistoriewiki, is an encyclopaedia and research site that is run by the Norwegian Institute of Local History at the National Library of Norway. The wiki focuses on local history and contains contributions from a wide variety of users. The wiki contains over 61,000 articles and almost 190,000 images. The wiki is a co-creative arena and has over 2 million visitors per year.
The vast majority of academic publications are not openly accessible and require a subscription/payment to access. Plans that will ensure the requirements for full and
immediate open publication are met have been postponed and will apply from the Research Council of Norway's round of announcements in 2021.
Some general remarks: Amendments to the Norwegian Archives Act enable online users to share digitised material without obtaining permission for general publication. The Sámi Parliament and Arts Council Norway are working on a systematic effort to learn more about rights and ownership relating to Sámi ICH. Much of the material surrounding ICH is historic and much of the documentation has not been carried out in a community-based way. An exception to this rule may be found in the collections of folk music and dance, though much of the material is not openly accessible due to its format or collateral rights.
In work with both Sámi actors and national minorities, it has been repeatedly stated that
there is a need to document living traditions. In work with Sámi ICH, it has been pointed out that much of the documentation and collections of Sámi culture and history are preserved in various archives in several countries. For example, information about the Sámi yoik is spread over many archives in several countries, which makes access more difficult and creates rights issues. The same applies to collections relating to national minorities.
According to one of the national minority organisations, the assimilation policy has led to the Tater/Romani people's language and culture being destroyed.This has had a particularly severe impact on Tater/Romani people who travelled by boat. Such a long time has passed since this way of travelling was practised and defined the culture itself. For historical
reasons, they now have to focus on taking care of whatever aspects of history and language that remain, like work on revitalise the language and raise awareness of what it means to come from a boat-travelling family. This could help people to feel proud of being
descendants of a special group of people, who characterised life along Norway’s coasts for a long time. See the comment in Indicator 9.1.
The Haugaland Museum has been working with Tater/Romani people for many years. In 2020, the museum received a grant from the Government's collective reparations scheme for Tater/Romani people to realise the project “Romani cultural heritage sites along the coast”. The aim of the project is to record cultural heritage sites, such as meeting places, harbours, temporary stopping places and places with names linked to the Romani people.
The project builds on the 2005 pre-project called De båtreisende på Vestlandet –
romanifolket som reiste sjøveien (Boat travellers on the west coast – the Romani people who travelled by sea). The aim of this pre-project was to identify what existed in the way of material in this region, examine relevant literature, establish contacts with local Romani organisations, conduct some interviews and collect objects and photographs.
Question 10.2
Are the results of research, documentation, and scientific, technical and artistic studies on ICH utilized to strengthen policy-making across different sectors?
Not applicable
Provide any additional details here.
Question 10.3
Are the results of research, documentation, and scientific, technical and artistic studies on ICH utilized to improve safeguarding?
Limited
Provide any additional details here.
As previously mentioned, little research is being conducted into ICH (see Indicator 9.3).
Although traditions for the preservation and transmission of knowledge have been
developed through the activities of various organisations and institutions (courses, training), there has hitherto been little tradition for research-based work. The organisations focus
more on the development of methodologies than on documenting their methods in publications.
Some programmes intended to preserve and transmit ICH have been developed:
Collaboration between museums and universities regarding, for example, Nidaros Cathedral Restoration Workshop, the boatbuilding study programme at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, and the Norwegian Crafts Institute’s scholarship scheme. The main focus of all these programmes is formal and informal education, not research partnerships. The Norwegian Crafts Institute has published articles on the preservation of ICH in Norway and abroad.
At the consultation meetings prior to this report, it was pointed out that the craft field lacks good and accessible archives. There are several collections of craft-related documents, but they are not considered particularly accessible for research purposes:
• The Norwegian Folklore Archives have a lot of interesting material. However, for the past ten years they have lacked qualified personnel to manage and disseminate that
documentation. The collection primarily comprises unregistered hand-written texts/notes.
In 2012, the oldest parts of the Norwegian Folklore archive’s material was selected for inscription in the national register under the UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme.
• The Norwegian Crafts Institute was tasked with collecting material as part of the craft register, and it holds many documents in different formats. This collection is largely unregistered and therefore not particularly accessible, and, there is a lack of qualified resources to manage and disseminate the documentation.
• There is a substantial body of documents from the 1930s concerning building practices on the west coast of Norway. This is important cultural-geographical documentation that is held by the county. The archive is well organised and is available for use in the reading room.
There is a digitisation project underway, which aims to publish this on digitalarkivet.no. This work is planned to be completed in 2021. Although this will make the material available, the archive does not have trained professional staff who can help users find what they are looking for and interpret the material.
• The Norwegian Institute of Bunad and Folk Costume has a large available collection of costume pieces and registered costumes. Advisors offer free advice and guidance on
practical textile work, various craft techniques and the preservation of costume collections.
All three collections/databases lack qualified resources to manage and disseminate the documentation. The traditional building crafts scholarly group at the NTNU emphasises documentation in its undergraduate programme and examines methods for documentation and analysis of archive material in collaboration with the Norwegian Centre for Traditional Music and Dance, which has extensive experience of the documentation and analysis of corporeal movements.
The material in the folk music archives is used actively in new folk music productions and folk-dance performances.
The Norwegian Crafts Institute has published articles on the safeguarding of ICH in Norway and abroad.
Baseline and target
The first scale below automatically indicates the extent to which this indicator is met based on the information provided above. It constitutes a baseline for future reporting.
The second scale allows you, on a voluntary basis, to define a target for the next reporting exercise, in six-year time, and a text box allows you to explain how you intend to achieve this target.
Extent to which the current indicator is met:
Minimally
Target for the next report:
Minimally
Briefly explain why the State decided to establish this target for the next reporting cycle and how it will try to achieve it. In doing so, you can refer to the specific aspects and assessment factor(s) for this indicator that the State may wish to address: