Date submitted: 25/07/2009

The Virtual Reconstruction of Lost Heritage: The Hamilton Inventories Project

Celia Curnow Project Editor, Hamilton Inventories Project , , UK

Professor Bruce Royan Director, Virtual Hamilton Palace Trust Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Meeting: 201. Art Libraries

WORLD LIBRARY AND INFORMATION CONGRESS: 75TH IFLA GENERAL CONFERENCE AND COUNCIL 23-27 August 2009, Milan, Italy http://www.ifla.org/annual-conference/ifla75/index.htm

Abstract This paper describes an innovative project to reconstruct, from the resources of libraries, museums and archives worldwide, one of the finest historical private collections ever to be assembled in Europe. The Virtual Hamilton Palace Trust was set up to recreate, on the Web, a lost Ducal Palace and its spectacular collections of fine and decorative art, which have been scattered throughout the world.

The prototype of this project is described with illustrations. It has recently undergone a comprehensive evaluation by researchers and prospective users, and this paper discusses why and how that was carried out, and what conclusions were reached.

The Hamilton collections The of Hamilton were spectacular collectors of fine and decorative art across some four centuries (Figure 1). Much of the collection was dispersed through a series of sales beginning in the late nineteenth century, and Hamilton Palace itself was demolished in the 1920’s. The current whereabouts of many fine pieces are not known: but there exist, in the family’s private papers, the local Public library, and elsewhere, an amazingly complete set of inventories and sale catalogues, going back to the early seventeenth century.

The Virtual Hamilton Palace Trust The Virtual Hamilton Palace Trust (VHPT)1 was set up to reconstruct the Palace and its collections through a series of research projects utilising New Technology. The Trust is Chaired by the celebrated historian and biographer Dr Rosalind K. Marshall2, and its directors include Dr Godfrey H. Evans, Principal Curator of European Applied Art at National Museums Scotland; George P. Mackenzie, Director of the National Archives of Scotland; and Fraser Niven, CEO of Lennoxlove – the home of the current of Hamilton.

VHPT’s technology partner is the Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network (SCRAN)3 . With the collaboration of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), VHPT produced a Pilot4 to demonstrate what might be possible, including simple Virtual Reality models of the lost Palace, based on the original architects' drawings (including those of William Adam c1730), 1920’s plans and photographs from the 19th century. (Figure 2).

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The Hamilton Inventories Project The Trust has now embarked on making available online digitised versions of each of the historic Hamilton inventories, with clickable links (on a line by line basis) to literal transcripts and modernised versions of every item description. These then click through to digital images and full captions for every item identified. Each object record refers back in its turn to any other relevant inventories, so that researchers can trace that object’s provenance, any changes in physical location through the years, and eventually what happened to it once it left the family. At every point in the system, there is a sort of “moderated Wiki” facility, so that researchers can identify new objects, add further information, correct errors etc. (Figure 3).

A worked example No doubt the first thing a user might want to do is a “Google” type of search on everything that has currently been loaded into the site, by typing whatever they want into the Search box on the top right-hand corner of the page). For example “Jacobite” will retrieve among other things, a view (attributed to Giuseppe Valeriani), of the Palazzo Muti, with Prince James Edward Stewart welcoming his younger son, Prince Henry, who has just been made Cardinal. Since this was

3 retained in the Duke of Hamilton's private collection until as recently as 2001, it would not have been visible if the user had been restricted to searching through the historic inventories and sale catalogues. Clicking on any one of the thumbnail images presented (Figure 4) gives access to more information about the object it represents.

To get an idea of the mechanics of the inventories project, now click “Inventory Images” in the left-hand column. You will be presented with thumbnail images, in date order, of the Inventories which we are currently working on. Select an inventory you are interested in, and you will see a list of the pages from that inventory which have been scanned/transcribed (in the long run, we hope to have images and descriptions of every object listed in each inventory: at present, we list those objects we have already loaded, against the appropriate page number) (Figure 5).

4 Click on 1643 c. Paintings (M4/21). Select Page 10. Find the third line up from the bottom of the page, and click on it. A text box will open up at top of screen, displaying both a Literal and a Modernised transcript of the entry, ie "A litle pece w[i]th Lott [&] his 3 daughters"(Figure 6).

Click on "View Object" to display the actual painting (Figure 7).

5 If you like, you could then scroll down to read a brief description and a list of other known mentions in the inventories (Figure 8) (you can click on some of these to display the appropriate scanned page).

Alternatively, if you scroll down to the "Who:" section of the record details (figure 9), and click on "James 3rd Marquis and 1st Duke of Hamilton (Owner)" you will get 5 further paintings from his collection (Figure 10).

Again, the Record also contains a bibliographic reference to a book about the Arnott collection, and by clicking on "Title" within this reference you can search the National Library of Scotland to find the shelfmark of the copy they have available (Figure 11).

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We have chosen to include in this prototype a range of different kinds of "inventory", including letters, receipts, sale catalogues, and even David Teniers the younger's painting of the Gallery of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm c1651 (Figure 12).

7 If you select this, and then click on the painting on the top row centre left of the gallery wall, you will access the details of Giorgione's "Three Philosophers" (Figure 13), which is also listed in four other inventories. And so on…

The evaluation Since the publication in 1988 of Don Norman’s seminal Psychology of Everyday Things5 it has been recognized that all systems design benefits from a human- centred approach, with the evaluation of usability at its heart. Throughout the 1990s, similar ideas were being applied to the design of cultural databases6 and museum websites7. Nowadays also, writers on cultural informatics continue to emphasize that well-formed practices of evaluation should be part of any digital design process throughout every stage, including on-going maintenance well after the initial project development8. Furthermore, a best practise for evaluation within the digital cultural sector is beginning to emerge9.

In Scotland in 2005 the Scottish Museums Council published a user impact evaluation of digital projects in Scottish Museums10. The aim of this evaluation,

8 to gain an understanding of the users of electronic cultural resources, was part of the published strategy of the Scottish Museums Council11. The report identified best practice in Scottish collection digitisation projects, and shed some light on how audiences view the resulting services. Not surprisingly, its key recommendation emphasised the importance of testing, monitoring and proper evaluation of the museum digital project in an iterative manner, at every stage and right from the outset. Another imperative that emerged was that of clearly defining user groups and their likely objectives. It is against the background of these publications and their findings that evaluation was seen by the Virtual Hamilton Trust’s Board of Directors as an integrated part of the development cycle of the Inventories Project with a central role to play.

The Prototype and its evaluators This prototype has been developed over the past two years. A smaller version of the prototype which included seven inventories and related material was unveiled in August 2006 as part of the exhibition Treasures of Lennoxlove12, held at the Edinburgh auction house Lyon and Turnbull. Since then another six items in the form of bills, other inventories, photographs and letters have been added to the original seven inventories.

Thirteen potential users participated in this evaluation. However, 2 users completed the evaluation together, and have been counted as a single user as their responses were for the most part similar. It was important that there was a balance of participants between those from the commercial world, those from academia and those from the art gallery and museum world. Those selected included two art dealers, three curators, five academics, a librarian, a digital project director, and an architectural historian.

The users were considered to represent a variety of typical potential users who work in research communities and who had, above all, some hands-on experience of using this sort of archive. Users were interviewed and recorded digitally at their place of work using their own PCs and laptops. They were reassured at the outset of the interview that they were testing the system and that the system was not testing them. The interview was semi-structured. At the end of the interview additional structured questions in a questionnaire were asked, to obtain information about the interviewees and their use of the Hamilton and other archives. Each interviewee followed the same instructions given in the same order.

9 Methodology and Aims of the evaluation The broad aim of the Inventories Project is to link users interactively via the historical inventories, correspondence and bills in the Hamilton archives, in order to trace artefacts that were formerly in the Hamilton collections. Many of these objects are now in major museum and art gallery collections throughout the world. It therefore seemed logical to construct the evaluation using similar criteria to those used in the evaluation of museum digital projects.

As a qualitative and formative evaluation of a digital interactive resource, it was important that it should take place in the conceptual and early developmental stage of the cycle of the project13 p.323. Its overall broad aim was to identify the users’ needs, confirm the levels at which they would want to interact with the site and thereby ensure its future as a planned resource. As a basic market research method the evaluation consulted representatives of some of the potential user groups and assessed their responses. As a basic usability test the evaluation identified the extent to which the users were able to use the resource effectively and accurately, exposing some development errors and raising programming and design / navigation issues.

Although basic user requirements and needs had already been established at the outset of the development project, this qualitative evaluation studied user behaviour and aimed to get a more focused understanding of users. The expectation was that the evaluation would in turn inform future developments of the resource and provide fine tuning of user requirements.

The evaluation was accomplished by observing and digitally recording the reactions of each user when instructed or guided to perform a number of tasks, experiencing the main functions and features of the site. It was a minimal cooperative usability evaluation, cooperative because users were not passive subjects but worked as co-evaluators. This is considered a reliable and economic evaluation technique14 p.280.

Arguably it would have been more logical if evaluation had been conducted earlier on in the development cycle, but that had been impossible due to time and money constraints. What sort of evaluation methods could have been used earlier? Ideally evaluation methods should be a mixture of end-user testing and expert review14 abovep.270. If a web design team includes ‘Expert’ users, a variety of reviewing methods can be utilised. One of the most widely used forms of expert review involves experts checking the application against a list of guidelines or design principles (for example, visibility, consistency, familiarity, affordance, navigation control and feedback). These are sometimes referred to as ‘heuristics of usability’. From the writings of Jacob Nielson15, Don Norman5 and others, Benyon et al have compiled a list of such design principles, selected to check whether a system is “learnable, effective and accommodating”14 pp.65-66. Evaluations using this sort of method are quick, inexpensive and useful at the formative stage of a project such as this. Indeed many of the problems picked up

10 by the users in the evaluation might have been identified by this type of initial testing which would have resulted in a “consolidated list of prioritized problems linked to the heuristics and suggested solutions”14 p.273 .

Other problems that emerged in this evaluation might also have been picked up earlier by another type of expert evaluation method – the cognitive walkthrough. This requires the expert reviewer to rigorously examine the key interfaces and ask key questions: Will the user know what to do on each page? Will they see how to do it? If they follow through in the right way will they know that they have done so?14 p.537, 13 p.421

Many of the basic navigation issues picked out by users in this formative evaluation might have been picked up on earlier if a heuristic evaluation and a cognitive walk through had been completed by expert users at the start of the prototype’s construction. However, an alternative approach was taken, to build a rapid prototype based on the ready-made framework of the “SCRAN-in-a-Box" solution. This solution has been created to conform to basic accessibility standards validated by the World Wide Web Consortium16. In addition, research into evaluation of interactive digital projects supports the view that feedback from users should and can be used by designers and developers at any time in the development cycle ideally at the prototype stage before the biggest part of the construction of the site17 p.43 .

The evaluation process The authors developed simple scenario of use using the original navigation chart. In this scenario a user would want to view a linked entry to a painting through one inventory. Having read the two main introductory pages, each user would find a painting - in this case the entry described as 85: James, 3rd Marquis of Hamilton by Daniel Mytens on page 6 of the 1638 inventory of paintings (M4/20).This was accessed via the index that listed all the inventories included in the project and subsequently via the index that lists all the pages and items found in a particular inventory. From this image of the inventory page the user would access literal and modern transcriptions of entries above the page. If the object had not ever been traced the user would be asked to help identify the piece and suggest its whereabouts. They would then link either directly to the object if it exists or access a transcription page. On the transcription page they could examine the page and the thumbnail with the zoom facility and then access an object. Having viewed the record of a painting or an object, the user could then return to link to another inventory entry that is listed at the bottom of that record object page. The user would then be shown the Selected Search system on this transcription page and finally a pathfinder with information about an individual inventory or groups of inventories. A final step was to access bibliographic references on an inventory transcription page which have direct links to shelf mark locations in the National Library of Scotland and the British Library.

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The evaluator then completed a questionnaire about themselves, their relationship to Hamilton Palace, their use of the Hamilton collections and the National Archives of Scotland. They were asked to discuss the reasons they might use the resource and ways they might use the whole website, including the earlier Pilot website4. They were invited to consider the general usability of the Inventories Prototype, its navigation, its feedback systems, whether it was clear what one might want to use it for, and whether one would chose to use it for realistic tasks. Finally, they were encouraged to express their general reaction to the whole resource and suggest improvements.

Results Digital recordings of each evaluation session were transcribed and from the transcriptions a list of recommendations and/or possible solutions (17 in total) was drawn up. It was important to note the positive as well as the negative reactions to the site so that in any redesign the positive aspects of the experience of using the site would not be lost. Many perceived problems were linked to the basic principles or heuristics of usability and design14 p.272: • learnability (navigation, control, consistency, and feedback), • effectiveness (familiarity, visibility) and • accommodation (conviviality, flexibility and overall style)

Parts of the questionnaire sometimes elicited similar responses but because of its open ended nature it often pushed users to think more deeply about the site and its potential. For example, users were asked whether they would pay to look at other archive material from another archive presented in the same way, linking archived inventories to surviving traced objects. The answers were very positive with a wide suggestion of potential archives and collections that could be treated in a similar way.

It was interesting to see the variations in what users regarded as the best and the worst features of the site. The worst feature was identified as the lack of an operational “help” page and (in places) no logical guidance through the site (users did not know what to do). The best features included the initial commitment by the national Archives of Scotland to scanning the Hamilton archive, the accuracy and high resolution of the scanning and the overall design.

Users showed delight, interest and fascination at the depth and range of inventories, bills and photographs used for the prototype and the links that have and will be made to paintings and furniture now in globally scattered collections. They were genuinely aware of the opportunity for each user to engage with and possibly challenge the transcriptions and were aware that they could contribute in a meaningful way to the research project by identifying and making links to as yet untraced paintings and furniture. They realised the collaborative nature of the resulting research, which chimes well with the Web 2.0 approach: ‘Everybody would have ownership!’

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In all these respects the evaluation showed to what extent the project is cutting edge. The evaluation confirmed that in this digital age new ways of learning and comprehension are constantly emerging just as they did in Europe in the 15th Century following the invention of printing with movable type. The evaluators came to understand that VHPT provides access to archives at an arguably deeper level that many other current academic history and art history digitization projects. They realised that in its finished state the Inventories Project would continue valuable research tracing the Hamilton Collections globally, resolving crucial problems of provenance that have perplexed at least three generations of historians and art historians. As one evaluator enthusiastically declared at the end of the interview: ‘It is a virtual tour of what was the most important house in Scotland…...you are drilling down. Even [in] the best country houses in the country you would never have that depth of knowledge in a guide book ….. Its all to hand…..If you were in Hamilton Library you would have about 58 things open…with your fingers in pages…The V&A, National Gallery and even the Met.[ropolitan Museum, New York]….I don’t think any of them has ever linked to that degree with inventories….I am thrilled and astonished that you have got this far.’

Next steps The evaluation identified user needs and made recommendations, and work is underway to implement many of these. The project’s development cycle, will include further end-user evaluation, and before this it is hoped to carry out further expert reviews such as a cognitive walkthrough. In addition, although there is still a lot to do to complete the seventeenth-century inventories and letters, thought is already being given to our next big content creation initiative. . The great demand from academics, curators, dealers, auctioneers and others interested in the Hamilton Palace collection is for information about individual items while they were in the Hamilton Palace collection. This generally takes the form of requests for details about descriptions and attributions, which house and room items were in, who had acquired or owned them, and how they relate to other things.

Christie’s 1882 Hamilton Palace catalogue records 2,213 lots of fine and decorative art items that were sold in 1882 but is not a full record of the Hamilton collection. Hundreds of items were retained by the 12th Duke’s family, trustees and heirs. Some still survive at Lennoxlove. Many others were disposed of later, notably in another series of Christie’s sales in 1919, but also in dozens of other sales and dispersals between 1882 and the present day. Moreover, some items in the 1882 Hamilton Palace sale (e.g. Rubens’s celebrated painting of Daniel in the Lions’ Den) were ‘bought back’ by the Hamilton family and sold a second time later on.

13 Thus simply publishing and annotating Christie’s 1882 Hamilton Palace sale catalogue would only allow us to tell part of a complex and fascinating story. A better, more comprehensive approach would be to select the 1876 Hamilton Palace inventory, which includes most of the items in the 1882 sale and also many of those in the 1919 sale and other sales/dispersals. Using the 1876 sale catalogues, which contains the fullest entries of all the pre-1882 inventories, we can establish the existence in the collection of most of the significant items and their placement in the palace. Moreover, the 1876 inventory records the palace in its Victorian heyday when it was not simply the great powerhouse and treasure house created by the 10th Duke, but was stuffed with many of the works removed from William Beckford’s two properties in Bath, the Hamilton’s two townhouses (the 10th Duke and Duchess’s house in Portman Square and the 11th Duke and Duchess’s house in Arlington Street) and Easton Park in Suffolk (which the 10th Duke had inherited from the Earl of Rochford in 1830 and had used to house many of Beckford’s items in the late 1840s and early 1850s).

We would therefore be able to feed into the 1876 database all relevant information from earlier inventories and sources: notably the seventeenth-century sources, the 1704 Holyroodhouse and Kinneil inventories, the 1759 and 1793 Hamilton Palace inventories, the ‘Duke of Hamilton’ inventory relating to the paintings owned by the 9th Duke of Hamilton, the 1811, 1835-40 and 1852/53 Hamilton Palace inventories recording the development of the collection by the 10th Duke, the inventory of Beckford’s collection in Bath after his death in 1844, the lists relating to Easton Park and Portman Square, and the inventory of the contents of Arlington Street assembled by the 11th Duke, either from Beckford’s embarrassment of riches or through his own collecting. At the same time, we could add the information from the 1882 and 1919 sales and other disposals and thereby piece together the fullest possible, interconnected record of the Hamilton Palace Collection.

In Conclusion The prototype has illustrated the extent to which the VHPT approach could be employed in finding and making links to as yet untraced paintings and furniture. Quite complicated information is obtained by the end user in an intuitive and compelling way without reducing its academic significance. In this era of digital access the non-specialist user can interact with information that was previously the preserve of academics in a novel way. This open-ended project is designed to enable the continual discovery, selection and gathering of resources on the Hamilton Collection, and disseminate them to new audiences.

The history of the Dukes of Hamilton and their collections is interwoven with major movements and events in the development of modern Scotland, and with some of the finest works of art in western culture. VHPT has already attracted the interest of scholars throughout Scotland and abroad, and this project has the potential to become one of the most significant art/socio/historical research undertakings ever embarked upon in Scotland.

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References

1 The Virtual Hamilton Palace Trust [Website] http://www.vhpt.org/

2 Marshall, RK. The days of Duchess Anne: life in the household of the Duchess of Hamilton, 1656-1716. Collins, 1973

3 Royan B. “Cross-domain access to digitised cultural resources: the SCRAN project.” IFLA Journal, 25:2, May 1999 http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/pdf/039-109e.pdf

4 Hamilton Palace: a Virtual Reconstruction [Website] http://sites.scran.ac.uk/vhp/index.html

5 Norman DA. The Psychology of Everyday Things. Basic Books, 1988

6 Royan B. “Towards Database Design Criteria.” In: Proceedings of the UKOLUG State of the Art conference. Learned Information, 1992

7 Hertzum M. “A review of museum web sites: in search of user-centered design.” In: Archives and Museum Informatics 12, 1998

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9 Dawson D, Grant A, Miller P, Perkins J. “User Evaluation: Sharing Expertise To Build Shared Values.” In: Proceedings of the Museums and the Web Conference, 2004 http://www.archimuse.com/mw2004/papers/dawson/dawson.html

10 Scottish Museums Council. Museums, Galleries and Digitisation - Current best practice and recommendations on measuring impact. November 2005 http://www.museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk/publications/publication/44/

11 Scottish Museums Council. A National ICT Strategy for Scotland’s Museums. June 2004 http://www.museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk/publications/publication/67/

12 [Sibbald J.] Treasures from Lennoxlove: home of the Duke of Hamilton. [Catalogue of an exhibition at Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, 1-18 August 2006]. [Lennoxlove House Ltd], 2006 http://www.vhpt.org/news/news_images/Lennoxlove_cat.pdf?PHPSESSID=48u41fo24tjrnvcscbubs9cs03

13 Preece J, Rogers Y, Sharp H. Interaction Design - beyond human-computer interaction. John Wiley & Sons, 2002

14 Benyon D, Turner P, Turner S. Designing Interactive Systems: People, Activities, Contexts, Technologies. Pearson Education, 2005

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15 Neilsen J. Usability Engineering. Academic Press, 1993

16 Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) [Website]. World Wide Web Consortium http://www.w3.org/WAI/

17 Jones L, Greene SL. “MoMA and the three legged stool: Fostering creative insight in interaction system design.” In: Proceedings of the conference on designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods and techniques. ACM Press, 2002 http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=347660

About the Authors Celia Curnow. Project Editor, Hamilton Inventories Project [email protected] A former curator with Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, with a recent Masters degree in Multimedia and Interactive Systems Design, Celia currently edits the Hamilton Inventories Project and has just completed an evaluation of its prototype.

Professor Bruce Royan. Director, Virtual Hamilton Palace Trust. (Speaker). The CEO of cultural informatics consultancy CCL, Bruce has managed art collections for two universities, drafted the ICT Strategy for Scottish Museums, and completed an Information Futures study for Tate Galleries. He chairs the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations.

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