2019:GLAM/Why do museums decide to open up their collections? Presenting research results on shared open heritage & GLAMs business models

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GLAM/Why do museums decide to open up their collections? Presenting research results on shared open heritage & GLAMs business models

Alexievich · Saturday 10:15 - 11:00

Title

Why do museums decide to open up their collections?

Presenting research results on shared open heritage & GLAMs business models

Description

A growing number of GLAM institutions and organisations have decided to provide open access to their digitised collections online. However, the quality of access and institutional policies differ across the world. Firstly, some GLAMs choose their own websites or tools as a primary and preferred source for those seeking their content, some contribute to bigger platforms or cooperate with Wikimedia and contribute to Wikimedia Commons. Among GLAMs that already decided to share their collections openly online, we can still find those who - for example - decide to charge users for access to high resolution images. To support our policy efforts aimed at improving access to open heritage collections worldwide and design informed and evidence-based training & cooperation with GLAMs, Wikimedia’s Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU, in collaboration with Centrum Cyfrowe, conducted a study on museums’ business models across Europe.

This session will discuss the results of the study as well as the process of collecting data and challenges we have faced on the way. It will focus on:

• presenting existing business models of museums across Europe identified within the study,
• discussing the main challenges museums and other GLAMs face when they try to create a business model for their own,
• identifying main challenges faced while collecting such data & analysing it,
• identifying main barriers within institutions that prevent them from fully embracing openness.

Relationship to the theme

This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner:

Improving the quality of open access to heritage content results in more innovative projects & products that might be based on heritage resources and data (SDG 8, 9), contributes to quality of education and enables more OER to be created by reusing GLAMs’ collections worldwide (SDG 4, 5, 10).

Session outcomes

At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved:

Attendees will:

• Learn more about the existing models that GLAMs choose to share their content and discuss how GLAM-Wiki projects might benefit from that knowledge
• Understand internal barriers & challenges GLAM struggle with while developing their own policies of access to their collections online and how Wikimedia Commons might offer an alternative
• Develop ideas how to support more & better quality access to heritage resources
• Share ideas and experiences around promoting and supporting openness in GLAMs and encouraging GLAMs to donate their resources to Wikimedia.

Session leader(s)

• Aleksandra Janus
• Anna Mazgal
• Karin Glasemann
• Lizzy Jongma

Usernames

• Aleksandra Janus

Affiliation/country

• Centrum Cyfrowe/Poland
• Wikimedia's Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU
• National Museum of Sweden/Sweden
• Wikimedia Nederland

E-mail contact

• ajanus@centrumcyfrowe.pl

Session type

Each Space at Wikimania 2019 will have specific format requests. The program design prioritises submissions which are future-oriented and directly engage the audience. The format of this submission is a:

• Panel with audience Question & Answer session

Length of session

30-45 min

Supporting work

Optional:

• A study done by Aleksandra Janus as part of the Open GLAM Benchmark Survey in 2014-2015: https://otwartakultura.org/en/materials-in-english/open-glam-in-poland-report/
• 'Survey of GLAM Open Access Policy and Practice' (2018-) by Douglas McCarthy & Andrea Wallace:
  • https://medium.com/@CultureDoug/uncovering-the-global-picture-of-open-glam-af364aadeeee
  • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WPS-KJptUJ-o8SXtg00llcxq0IKJu8eO6Ege_GrLaNc/edit#gid=1216556120

Requirements

The session will work best with these conditions:

• Room: Any type of room with projector

• Audience: 30-50, the session is design to serve those working with GLAM institutions or interested in policy/advocacy work related to the subject, but everyone is invited and no previous skills are required

• Recording: Yes, recording allowed