As discussed, the historical debate of the Houses of the Oireachtas has sort of nebulous existence between history, now and the future. Television or video footage is becoming more common, particularly in the digital age, but its purpose is splintered. The physical Oireachtas debates volumes were digitised in the 1990s, imperfectly, and although the primary purpose was done to what is probably an acceptable standard, the potential for digitalisation and any sort of digital transformation is still dependent on that first committing of the text to 1s and 0s. What are the possibilities, particularly when we consider the potential benefits of other media?

One of the better digital museum experiences I’ve seen is the virtual tour of Leinster House, which was brought online this year for Culture Night as the usual opening of the Houses for tours was cancelled due to Covid. It’s really immersive and fairly complete (although some of the works on the wall seemed to be missing when the images were captured). There is even a sliver of digital transformation where the photos on the wall are linked to the debates from the day, either in text or video.

It’s done by Matterport and Domavue, however, two private operations, so what chance of FAIR being realised? In fairness, the Matterport terms and conditions are there and don’t seem to shut down the route to openness but there’s not much comfort there all the same. And it seems that Domavue haven’t just done this for the Oireachtas.  There’s the Natural History Museum.

There’s interesting tension here in some ways. The work of digitisation, digitalisation and even digital transformation has been done, albeit by a commercial entity, where it mightn’t have been done otherwise. And taking the Oireachtas and the Natural History Museum, if somebody wanted to repeat the process with FAIR principles in mind, would it be seen as redundant?

The virtual tour of the Houses of the Oireachtas is not the limit of what’s possible in any case. The Oireachtas Library and Research Service has thousands of pieces that still have to be digitised, let alone put to work in a digital sphere. And digital transformation can extend beyond just a link to another piece of website.