Digital meets culture: towards a national portal for aggregating Indian cultural heritage

Purpose The heritage of the country needs to be conserved, documented and protected to enable further cultural and technological progress, for we stand on the shoulders of those who have preceded us. The purpose of this study is to examine the national-level safeguarding efforts in India aimed at preserving its cultural heritage (CH) assets digitally. It also highlights the need for a national aggregator platform that can gather metadata from various data providers to provide a unified discovery experience. Additionally, it proposed a model framework for developing a national digital heritage portal, including its workflow, to improve understanding of the CH preservation landscape. Design/methodology/approach The study collects data on CH documentation and national efforts to develop CH portals. It includes data on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization-listed heritage sites in India, gathered from reliable sources and analyzed. The paper discusses digital preservation opportunities and challenges for CH, reviewing relevant literature. A comparative analysis of major national CH aggregator models from selected countries is conducted to highlight the importance of developing the proposed Indian national digital heritage portal. This qualitative, document-based and comparative approach is suitable because the study uses secondary data and aims to identify best practices for developing a national-level digital heritage system. Findings Cultural heritage is now heading towards a digital future, and innovative documentation methods are becoming increasingly important. The transition to digitally sourced preservation efforts further expands the scope of its wider accessibility. The study found that numerous efforts have been initiated in India at various levels to digitize and disseminate its CH content. Furthermore, they employ various forms, interpretations and standards while preserving, documenting and providing access to their contents, thereby lacking uniformity in developing CH information systems. The lack of a national platform for aggregating metadata of digital heritage resources keeps them isolated and less discoverable. Research limitations/implications Developing an Indigenous CH national discovery portal helps connect the history and heritage of the country. It can serve as a single point of access to a wide range of CH materials, in both tangible and intangible forms. Apart from digital objects, it can also include other related resources of CH, such as scientific publications and news related to CH. CH institutions, including Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAMs), memory institutions and research organizations, can participate in this initiative. This collaboration would enable the integration of their diverse digital collections in one centralized location, allowing the general public to learn more about their history, culture and heritage. Practical implications Comprehensive documentation of the heritage of a country is essential for its promotion and achieving socio-economic sustainability. Cultural organizations, heritage communities and GLAMs are increasingly embracing digital technologies to document, share and promote the value of the cultural inheritance they possess. Developing and providing access to digital CH enhances its visibility and use. Nevertheless, a scalable and sustainable metadata aggregation system is essential for harvesting metadata from various and distributed digital repositories to enhance access and ensure data interoperability. Originality/value The author found that no similar studies have been conducted to examine the need for developing a national portal to aggregate Indian CH, providing a single-entry point to trusted sources of shared knowledge. Digital collections managed by various organizations follow their own data formats and semantic structures and are not connected with each other, which creates challenges for resource discovery.