Creating the environment for collaboration - Victoria's Cultural Network project

Cultural organizations, such as museums and galleries, are increasingly utilizing the capacities of broadband to deliver rich media content over the Web, in their venues or via mobile devices. In the project reported here, a high speed broadband network connects six arts agencies in Melbourne, Australia and this is used to deliver rich media content via a Web site and public access points in venues. The installation of the broadband network has been the catalyst for wider collaboration to be undertaken. This paper describes Victoria's Cultural Network (VCN), an initiative that has seen a number of organizations start to communicate and cooperate in a way that they have not done before.