In recent times heritage institutions have been re-assessing their relationship with members of the public both in terms of their use of digital collections and their potential contribution to increasingly rich digital resource environments (Terras, 2011). This paper reports on a study which applied virtual ethnographic methods to the investigation of Canmore, the digital archive of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), opened to public contribution in 2009. The study examined the nature of the online environment, users' contributions and participation dynamics, which were found to mirror traditional patterns, with mostly expert users contributing high-quality data to the record. Less evidence emerged of collaborative engagement and dialogical exchanges more typical of online sociality. The paper considers the merits of, and possible reasons for, such an outcome, also touching on more recent initiatives which show RCAHMS embracing new opportunities for innovative co-curation practices.
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