Page 25 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2014

AC/E digital culture ANNUAL REPORT 2014share resources and knowledge of the use of free software applied to archiving and access to digital content:The purpose of these contacts is to work on a project aimed at bringing together cultural institutions to share resources and knowledge on the problem of archiving and accessing digital cultural content, in order to meet their needs as entities at the service of the public. The most immediate aim consists of creating a system or platform that enables the sharing of content produced by the different cultural entities, in such a way that users can access it and download it simply, freely and without charge.COLLABORATION IN THE PHYSICAL AS AN EXPONENT OF THE VIRTUALAs we have been seeing, libraries, museums and cultural institutions in general are finding new challenges in their mission to serve the public with the advances of technology, but at the same time digital culture itself is provoking a transformation of physical spaces, leading them to reinvent themselves with respect to their main functions. Instead of being leisure facilities to entertain and arouse the love of culture, they are becoming laboratories to produce and generate direct participation by members of the public as cultural actors. Notable are the practices known as DIY (Do It Yourself), which with time are transcending their individual character and becoming enriched by group participation in dynamics also known as DIWO, or Do It With Others.This new culture of the prototype and of collective making has been reflected by Chris Anderson in his book Makers: the New Industrial Revolution (2012), where he draws attention to the opportunity for this type of urban space as meeting‐points for the exchange of ideas and the creation of practices. Thus, we are finding more and more examples of libraries and museums that are incorporating the participative culture of the makers, bringing the virtual to the physical, melding the spirit ofAC/Ecrowdsourcing and online collaboration with the creative synergies that are produced by sharing space.CROWDFUNDING, A NEW COLLABORATIVE WAY OF CONTRIBUTING TO A PROJECT BY FUNDING ITOf all the evolutions of crowdsourcing, there are two that are attaining a high degree of maturity. The first of these is crowdworking, better known as coworking, a practice in which Spain is positioned third in Europe and which consists of sharing workplaces in communal spaces. The benefit of coworking, used a great deal by social and cultural entrepreneurs, is not so much as a way of cutting costs as a way of enjoying an ecosystem which is favourable to the creation of interdisciplinary synergies.The second is crowdfunding, a system of managing microfunding for projects whose main aim is to collect enough economic resources to make them viable and sustainable. In general terms we could say that while in crowdsourcing campaigns a commitment of talent or time is generated, those more specifically of crowdfunding contribute basically money, turning the collaborator into a “partner”, “investor” or “sponsor”.It is true that crowdfunding is as old as making donations or volunteership in the cultural world. Nonetheless, what is unique about initiatives of this sort, and at the same time their driving force, is the application of digital tools for the management, viability and transparency of the system of participation. As a result of this, recent years have seen the appearance of specialised platforms which support crowdfunding campaigns in such a way that it becomes easy and accessible to collaborate in the funding of a specific project, and which have the traceability required for the monitoring of theWHERE WE ARE HEADING: DIGITAL TRENDS IN THE WORLD OF CULTURETHEME 2: CROWDSOURCING: SHARED CULTURE CURRENT PAGE...25