After the „Creative Commons for GLAM” Booksprint
Last week, we hosted a booksprint in Kraków, in order to create the „Creative Commons for GLAM” toolkit. The meeting was part of the CC Toolkits project, which aims to create a range of content bundles about the role of Creative Commons in areas such as culture, education or science. The event brought together specialists from across Europe representing Creative Commons and other open projects, including Europeana, Open Knowledge Foundation and Wikimedia – as well as practitioners from GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) institutions.
The toolkit went beyond explaining how CC licenses can be used in the cultural or heritage sector. Looking from a broader perspective, booksprint participants wrote how heritage becomes a commons by respecting the public domain, openly licensing copyrighted works, and making freely available metadata on cultural works as well. This can be achieved by using the full range of CC tools: licenses, the CC Zero waiver and the Public Domain Mark.
The sprint provided an opportunity to not just write the toolkit together, but also discuss what does „Open GLAM” really mean – without a shared definition, we could not prescribe a proper use of CC licenses. We began with the very definition of „Open GLAM” – a term, which after a quick Google search proves not to be yet very popular within the GLAM sector. We’ve felt that nevertheless the term is worth promoting, as it underlines shared goals, challenges and solutions between institutions often seen as highly diverse: galleries, libraries, archives and museums. We’ve also come to appreciate that „less is more” in the heritage sector – that using a CC license is not always the best solution for heritage (which is often already available as free Public Domain content – and should remain such).
We’d like to thank Aleksandra, Anna, Lisette, Axel, Joris, Kuba and Lech for taking part in our booksprint. We’re also grateful to Małopolski Instytut Kultury for letting their brilliant workshop space in Kraków, and innemuzeum.pl project for their support. The „CC for GLAM” toolkit will be presented in April at cctoolkits.com where you can already find a Creative Commons Basics toolkit.
To read reports of other participants go to Europeana Professional and Kennisland.
Photos by Lech Dulian, CC BY.