We believe that the pursuit and study of the arts and humanities is vital to the health of society at large. The cognitive power of the creative imagination and the ability of artistic expression articulate essential truths about the human condition encouraging self-discovery and new understanding. Critical thinking, coupled with ethical and moral evalution, can reveal the complex nature of the human experience. These perceptions and truths form our global cultural heritage.
We believe that a networked cultural heritage is a decided public good, one that should become a vital part of the digital infrastructure. We are excited by the intellectual and social potential of digital networking technology. We advocate a system by which people in all walks of life gain meaningful access to the text, objects, sounds and sights that form our global cultural heritage. By networking the materials held in thousands of collections, we could unlock the expressive power of cultural objects and their creators in a much richer and more rewarding way than ever imagined.
We believe in encouraging and enabling the creators, owners, stewards, researchers, teachers, students and perusers of global cultural heritage to work together, sharing their ideas, resources, experience and research. By doing so we will achieve the goal of an integrated, distributed body of cultural material accessible to all.
The National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH) is a diverse coalition of 63 educational institutions and cultural organizations dedicated to ensuring the greatest participation of all parts of the cultural community in the digital environment. NINCH expresses and embodies the values of full consultation, respect for each other's experience and outlook, and the importance of building and achieving consensus. We believe wisdom in this field is built through the exchange of multifaceted experiences and perspectives. We seek to build a program of action based on mutual respect and cooperation.