Open GLAM

Galleries, libraries, archives and museums.

OpenGlam.org is a network of institutions and people developing policies and practices on ethical open access to cultural heritage.

They are supported by Creative Commons and the Wikimedia Foundation, and publish a Medium space: https://medium.com/open-glam.

Their Declaration on Open Access for Cultural Heritage is being developed and in consultation/draft. Not much has been published yet but Andrea Wallace has written an Executive Summary saying:

"Cultural heritage institutions face a number of obstacles to digitizing and making collections available online. Many are beyond their control. But there is one important area that these institutions do have control over: the access and reuse parameters applied to a breadth of media generated during the reproduction of public domain works.

They take a strong line on what "open" means; in short any work restricting commerical use cannot be open (ref) "Prohibitions of commercial reuse disqualify a policy or practice from being characterized as open."

She continues that the declarations starting points should be:

• Embracing the premise that no new rights should arise in non-original reproduction media of public domain cultural heritage;
• Establishing consensus to align “open” with international definitions allowing commercial use, as well as the appropriate application of open licenses, tools, and labels;
• Introducing greater nuance to open access to invite, enable, and embrace newcomers who bring critical insights into what “open” means in the cultural heritage ecosystem;
• Providing adequate space within OpenGLAM to facilitate ongoing and collaborative improvements to appropriate management of digital heritage and expand knowledge around emerging questions in open GLAM;
• Recognizing the need for a baseline document that redefines and reclaims open GLAM as a shared philosophy, practice, conversation, and space framed broadly as a Declaration on Open Access for Cultural Heritage; and
• Moving into a phase of critical open GLAM that interrogates current systems, centers reflexive and locally-informed approaches, and strengthens the network to support GLAM staff and wider communities around good practice in digital heritage management and engagement.