Tag Archives: open access

IFLA celebrates Open Access Week 2023

International Open Access Week is upon us!

The theme of 2023 is Community over Commercialization. Libraries are places of community, and – as has been meme’d online, possibly tracing back to Neil Gaiman – are one of the few public spaces people can visit without being expected to buy something. ‘The default setting of libraries is open’ is another oft-repeated phrase. We are a place where people can come to access information, without charge.

Open Access builds on the ideals of the library to address more specific issues of community and commerce. It is rooted in part in the logic that publicly funded research has already been paid for by the public, and should not be paywalled by private companies. This is evident in, for example, the US’ 2022 policy update that all federally-funded research should be released OA. It also creates research publication and access opportunities globally, supporting researchers and the public to be engaged, contributing members of the scientific community. OA makes steps toward a world where scholars aren’t limited by their institutions’ resources and prestige.

As I wrote after attending Eurasian Academic Libraries Conference (EALC), in Astana, Kazakhstan.

”Hearing speakers from around Central Asia enthusiastically and the world discuss OA, repository development, and other related ongoing projects, it felt like I had entered a space where OA and related policies were the norm and traditional publishing modes were the alternative. It clearly showed the vitality and utility of OA.”

IFLA offers a variety of resources on OA, including our advocacy-oriented 2022 statement in support of Open Access and 576-page guide to copyright for libraries (published open, of course).  IFLA is in the process of formalizing its OA working group into an advisory committee, which will provide dedicated support to Open topics.

Among the IFLA units and sections with an interest in OA, the Copyright & other Legal Matters (CLM) committee addresses the legal, contractual, and publishing aspects of OA, while the Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) committee supports OA’s role in furthering human rights and information equity.

IFLA’s Academic and Research Libraries (ARL) section hosted a 2023 WLIC satellite conference with the theme of “Inclusiveness through Openness”, emphasizing OA’s value in “equitable participation in the global research and scholarly communication system.”

At the conference, I was interested to hear about the work on OA being done around the world, including by services like the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) in addressing journal discoverability and curation.

OA – and libraries – help us build community, and IFLA celebrates OA this week and beyond.

So what can you do? For one, read and publish OA! Part of my goals before OA Week 2024 are to clear some half-finished publications off my own desk, and dig more into UCL Press’ OA catalogue (for example). Look to IFLA’s 2022 OA Statement an advocate for OA, and help build infrastructure and alliances! And watch for developments from IFLA, including our upcoming OA vocabulary sheet scheduled for publication before year’s end.

 

Matt Voigts

IFLA Copyright & OA Policy Officer

Celebrating Open Access week and the publication of ‘Navigating Copyright for Libraries’

by Sara Benson, Copyright Librarian and Associate Professor, University Library, University of Illinois

Chair, IFLA Copyright & Other Legal Matters (CLM) Committee

One of the many exciting events to happen at this year’s World Library Congress in Dublin was the launch of a new volume in the IFLA Publication Series – Navigating Copyright for Libraries: Purpose and Scope. This volume, conceived and produced by members (current and past) of the IFLA Copyright and other Legal Matters (CLM) Advisory Committee, brings together 20 chapters written by some of the top global experts on copyright law for the libraries sector.

As a primer on the relationship between copyright law and libraries, this book sets out to provide librarians and information professionals with the grounding necessary to understand and articulate copyright in their institutions, consider approaches to supporting copyright literacy, and engage more fully with copyright policy and advocacy at local and international levels. It provides both basic and advanced information, with chapters covering some of the hottest issues facing libraries today, from the impact of artificial intelligence to the call for global support for library exceptions.

But even with this outstanding content, arguably the most exciting thing about this publication, and what we seek to celebrate this Open Access Week 2022, is the fact that it is one of the first two IFLA  Publications Series to be available immediately to download as an open access resource. It will also be available in a fully accessible format, among the first for an IFLA  Publication Series.

With both the editors and the authors including experts on and advocates for open access, from the outset it was clear that the book should be a test case for IFLA to put these ideas into practice. As the work to write and prepare the book progressed over three years from the first planning meeting in August 2019, the importance of the decision only became more apparent. The global pandemic has highlighted inequities in access to information more clearly than ever before and emphasised the imperative to facilitate timely access to knowledge on a global scale.

With the support of CLM and the IFLA Professional Committee, and the assistance of the staff at De Gruyter, the book has been published under the broadest of the Creative Commons licences, Attribution Only. This will ensure it can operate as open education resource (OER), available for all to reuse, remix, translate, update and integrate into local or more targeted resources. Versions using best practice accessibility standards are already on their way, and discussions have started about the first translations into languages other than English.

In its Preface, Navigating Copyright is dedicated to every librarian who has taken the time to read and interpret their national copyright statutes in the hope of finding a solution to an access challenge, and to those who have spoken up and continue to highlight inequalities in access to information and call for change. In this Open Access Week, we celebrate the contribution that open licensing choices can make to achieving this essential goal of knowledge for all.

The 10-Minute International Librarian #70: be able to explain why Open Access matters

The Open Access movement has radically changed the face of access to scholarly knowledge over the last twenty years.

While it is far from universal (both as concerns disciplines covered, and geography), it has seen a growing share of research published without barriers to access and use, meaning that readers are not dependent on belonging to a (wealthy) institution in order to be able to participate in science.

However, it remains contested. Some still argue that the products of research should still be paywalled, or at least subject to restrictions on access, for example in order to prevent researchers in other countries from having access.

Others point to questions around different business models, and in particular how different ways of covering the costs of publication may risk disadvantaging some, and leading to the (continued) dominance of research outputs from a small sub-set of countries and cultures.

Still others underline risks of reduced impact with insufficient investment in research, the rise of questionable journals,  and underline, correctly, that copyright status should not be the only thing deciding whether it is appropriate to publish something or not.

However, such discussions should not mask the fundamental point that the concept of open access – that no-one should be unable to enjoy their right to benefit from science because of paywalls – remains valid!

It is therefore useful, both for ourselves, and for those around us, to be able to be clear about this goal.

So for our 70th 10-Minute International Librarian exercise, be able to explain why Open Access matters.

There are of course plenty of materials available, with a rich range of organisations already active around OA, preparing explainers and advocacy tools.

Take a look at these, including of course LibGuides produced by colleagues around the world! If needed, try to condense them down into a few powerful sentences.

Think what arguments will work best in your own context – is it about equity, possibilities to work across disciplines, or greater reach for research produced in your context?

Share your favourite resources in the comments box below!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! 1.4 Shape public opinion and debate around open access and library values, including intellectual freedom and human rights

As we publish more ideas, you will be able to view these using the #10MinuteInternationalLibrarian tag on this blog, and of course on IFLA’s Ideas Store! Do also share your ideas in the comments box.

How IFLA’s volunteers are building understanding and action on Open Access

Happy Open Access Week 2021!

How to achieve Open Access – and in particular the theme of this year’s week, ‘it matters how we open knowledge’ – is a question mobilising libraries and library organisations around the world.

With the world far from a situation where all scholarly communication is open, and important questions being raised both about how to avoid creating new inequities and how to avoid inadvertent harm. The value of exploring these questions together, to share perspectives and ensure a more complete picture, is high.

IFLA itself is currently looking again at its own Open Access statement, and looking forward to sharing a revised version in the coming months. In this blog, we wanted to bring together some examples of what volunteers from across IFLA are currently doing to advance understanding and progress the debate.

Open Access and Serials Assessment: our Serials and other Continuing Resources Section dedicated a session at the World Library and Information Congress to the impact of OA on serials assessment, looking at what can be done to tackle a phenomenon which has received a lot of attention – the rise of questionable journals.

The session brought together representatives of publishers and reference platforms (in Latin America, Africa, and global), and looked at the criteria and tools being developed to weed out poor quality journals, and the impact that they have had, highlighting the different approaches open to the topic.

Power of Transformation: OA and Library Collections: our Acquisition and Collections Development Section also focused on Open Access at the World Library and Information Congress, looking at the impacts of open access in their area of focus – collections development.

With perspectives from libraries in developing and developed countries alike, speakers addressed the disruption that OA could cause, and how libraries can respond, as well as the importance of investing in infrastructure.

Drawing on Openly Licenced Materials in Education: the Information Technology Section looked specifically at the use of open access materials and tools in education (Open Educational Resources – OER), and the role that IT systems play in making this work. It noted the role that ICT can play in developing and enhancing OER initiatives, boosting discoverability and quality, while keeping costs under control.

Speakers focused on the leadership role that librarians can play in the movement, including through the open education librarianship movement, as well as how the development of new systems could help ensure easier access to the huge and diverse range of materials available to support learning.

Rights Retention and Open Access: the Academic and Research Libraries Section ran a series of three webinars with Plan S, discussing the latter’s proposals for a strategy on rights retention could apply in different parts of the world. The webinars – for Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia-Oceania, and the Middle East and North Africa/Sub-Saharan Africa – included presentation on the Plan S Strategy, but also opportunities to highlight the impacts that this could have on existing open access practices, as well as raising important questions about different approaches to openness.

Document Supply and Open Access: the Resource-Sharing During COVID (RSCVD) Initiative run by IFLA’s Document Delivery and Resource Sharing Section, the winner of IFLA’s Dynamic Unit Award in 2020, worked closely with Open Access Button in order to enable access to knowledge during the pandemic. The work provided a great opportunity to highlight the power of open access to support research, as well as familiarising more of the field with Open Access Button as a tool.

Open Access Library Publishing: IFLA’s Library Publishing Special Interest Group brings together expertise and experience from around the world in order to discuss practices and models for sustainable and effective publishing through libraries. The Group has organised webinars and other tools to build understanding, including insights around how to manage open access publishing programmes that respond effectively to the needs of researchers and users.

Caught in the Backwash? Six things worth retaining from the time of the pandemic

When IFLA’s Trend Report was released in 2013, the strapline was ‘Riding the Waves or Caught in the Tide’.

The Report focused on long-term trends affecting the way we live, work, interact and learn.

Today, libraries are of course faced with the very immediate question of how to provide services during a pandemic, and manage a recovery that is likely to be uneven and slow.

In particular, there will be key questions about when special measures taken in the context of the pandemic should be withdrawn.

This applies, of course, to restrictions on travel, on the opening of libraries, schools and businesses, and to the huge focus of resources into boosting medical capacity.

Finding the right time to return to ‘normal’ (insofar as this is possible) is a hard question, and decisions will need to take account of many factors, not least risks to health.

However, there are arguably some measures and practices which shouldn’t be withdrawn at all. In effect, as the wave recedes, how can we avoid these good things being caught in the backwash?

This blog offers a few suggestions of things we might want to keep from the time of COVID-19, building on our own experience and ideas shared by others.

Better deals for digital content: 2019 was marked, in particular, by tensions around the decision by some publishers to enforce embargoes on eBooks before making them available to libraries.

With the beginning of the crisis, not only was this position lifted, but there were welcome steps by a number of publishers to offer discounts on electronic content, helping to meet major increases in demand. As Publishers Weekly noted, increases in library use have gone hand-in-hand with increases in sales, and sales and profits have increased for many individual companies.

Of course, we are far from a perfect situation. Some special deals have lapsed, and eBooks remain expensive for libraries in comparison with the prices paid by consumers. In the academic field, there have been particular concerns about high and rising prices.

As positive sales figures for publishers are reported and analysed, we can at least hope that there will be a greater readiness to accept that library lending of digital content is not a harm, but rather a support to digital reading in general.

Awareness of the Need for Open Access and Copyright Reforms: a further impact of the crisis, at least in some countries, has been awareness of the need to ensure that copyright laws keep up with technology, in particular by ensuring that libraries can pursue their missions just as well through digital means as through analogue ones.

Linked to this is the drive to increase the share of research published open access, by-passing the need to rely on copyright exceptions in order to access and use work. Millions of educators, learners and researchers will now have their own experience of  whether materials are available to them online or not.

Bringing together this experience in order to sustain the momentum could see important progress, replicating the progress we are seeing in the proposals for reform made in Australia and Japan. At the international level, reiterating and underlining that existing global rules allow such steps will also be helpful.

Improved Services to People with Mobility Issues: during the pandemic, whole populations have discovered what it is like having to live life without having access to the physical premises of libraries. However, this was already the case for many – those living in remote areas, with limited mobility, in care homes or in prisons.

In response to lockdowns, there has been a wave of innovation in the provision of content and services, both to wider user groups and targeted on individuals most in need.

When safe re-opening is possible, there will clearly be a limit on resources – providing services offline and online can require much more effort and investment than providing just one of the two. However, we can hope that lessons from the crisis are learned and those without the possibility to access a library physically will benefit from lasting improvements in provision.

More regular, shorter meetings: pre-COVID, the possibility of physical meetings – conferences, seminars and other events – tended to a large extent to structure the rhythm of cooperation and communication between professionals. Where there were electronic meetings, these tended to be smaller, serving mainly to keep things moving.

However, without the possibility to meet in person during the pandemic, we have seen mush more exploration of the scope of digital platforms to bring people together. For example, in Ireland, regular town hall meetings have brought together all librarians in the country on a regular basis – something that would previously only have been thought of as something for conferences.

Similarly, many of IFLA’s own sections have moved from coming together twice a year for longer periods to more frequent, shorter sessions. These have allowed greater responsiveness to events, and new possibilities for participation. This feels, certainly, like a good practice to maintain.

Bringing in new voices: linked to the above point, with physical meetings not possible, we have hopefully seen a lasting weakening of the idea that it is necessary to travel in order to be able to participate. While it is clear that poor connectivity remains a major challenge, it is certainly easier to address than that of finding the money, time and visas to attend meetings in other countries or continents.

Again drawing on IFLA experiences, there have been exciting new possibilities to attend meetings organised by colleagues around the world, learning from a wider and richer range of experiences. This has opened a door to a greater diversity in the voices heard within the library field.

While of course meeting again in person will be important, both personally and as a means of reenergising the wider community, there will be value in maintaining these wider possibilities for engagement which have brought so much to the debate within the field.

Seeing libraries as an investment: finally, it has been welcome, in the context of the pandemic, to see some governments at least see supporting libraries as a way of stimulating economies. Such investments, crucially, are designed not only to create jobs now, but also to create the foundations for stronger growth in future, and so repay themselves over time.

Examples have included support for stronger connectivity, enlarged collections, and building works, all of which make it easier for libraries to fulfil their mission of providing equitable access to information.

While stimulus packages will have an end date, the evidence of the recognition that investing in libraries is a way of building a stronger economy is one that will be worth working to maintain. Gathering data about the positive impact of this work, as far as possible, will help with library advocacy for years to come.

Fostering creation of Open Educational Resources

From 1 to 5 March 2021, libraries take part in Open Education Week alongside educational stakeholders.

In November 2019, UNESCO adopted a recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER). This recommendation, a result of a consensus among 193 Member States, recognises the importance of supporting the development, sharing and use of openly licenced educational materials to improve access to education for all.

Libraries, as a driving force in educational issues through their missions of access to information and education, have a role to play in fostering the development of OER and thus in advancing this work.

The UNESCO recommendation is divided into five areas of action:

Building the capacity of stakeholders to create, access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER;
Developing supportive policy for OER;
Encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER;
Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER; and
Promoting and reinforcing international cooperation in OER.

These 5 areas of action make it possible to identify areas for action by all educational actors, including libraries. They include two levels of action, at the structural level and at the practical level. Libraries can engage in both.

At the structural, or policy level, libraries can work to influence the development of favourable open educational resource policies (many of which will be supportive of wider library missions). Crucially, the Recommendation represents an acknowledgement from countries that education is key and should be open to everyone without regard to their wealth, where they are born, the colour of their skins, their gender, their religion, age or abilities. Knowledge must be open and freely accessible. This is a powerful message.

At the practical level, libraries can also contribute to building a stronger Open Educational Resource chain. This chain involves the creation, access, re-use, adaptation and distribution of OERs, but also the development of institutional policies needed to structure these resources, including national and international platforms.

Here are some suggestions:

  • Identify the different actors that can play a role in the development of open educational resources, including the library team, the educational team, teachers, researchers.
  • Mobilise these actors through different actions: presentation of the objectives of the development of open educational resources, why it is important to tackle these issues of openness and the benefits this can bring to the library, the university and users in general.
  • Create opportunities to raise awareness of these issues or develop resources: webinars, meetings, design workshops,
  • Create opportunities to start creating OERs together: design templates, provide workshops to take the time to focus on the creation of OER but also how to re-use and distribute them.
  • Identify resources or professionals working on the same topic and contact them to exchange practices. Become part of a network or set up a discussion group to exchange good practices or existing structural elements that will enable you to move forward.
  • Identify internal or external platforms that could bring together your institution’s resources in order to facilitate their discovery by users.
  • Draw on the potential of open educational resources to fulfil the primary mission of libraries and knowledge dissemination centres: to build a sustainable means of providing quality open educational resources.
  • Bear in mind the reputational dividends: the constitution of quality open educational resources (materials or courses) by recognised organisations can give considerable visibility to the institution, especially if we consider the impact on the visibility of open access items.
  • Invite external professionals to raise awareness on this issue within your institution: working with an external contact person allows you to combine neutrality but also a national or international perspective.

Discover the document of SPARC Europe on Open Education in European Libraries of High Education.

 

Guest Blog: The Passenger Pigeon Manifesto

This is a guest blog by Adam Harangozó, a freelance creative worker.

Our past is crucial in understanding our present. It offers us knowledge and insights that help us to evaluate the world we live in today – the way we live our lives, structure our economies, and relate to each other and to nature. Learning from the past may yet help us correct mistakes and find better ways to live in the future. But for this to happen, there must be equal access to knowledge about the past, allowing for inclusive critical dialogue.

The Passenger Pigeon Manifesto (see below, and online),signed by a large number of professionals and cultural organisations, was born out of the fact that at a time of unprecedented species loss, the possibility for people to study animals that are no longer with us depends entirely on the accessibility of what has been written about them, or collected from them. With the 2nd Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity coming up next year, this is a crucial moment. There has rarely been a more appropriate time to talk about the importance of ensuring we can draw on this knowledge in order to understand how species decline, draw on insights that we can use more broadly in science, and simply raise awareness of what is at stake.

Clearly, loss of species is just one of many issues that ask us to re-evaluate our past. The COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and Black Lives Matter all do so. In order to learn to do things differently, we must have free access to our past. There is also a growing readiness to look at what more can be done to make digitised collections available to all. The Passenger Pigeon Manifesto brings these issues together into a clear call for more work to make our heritage accessible for all.

 

Passenger Pigeon Manifesto

A call to public galleries, libraries, archives, and museums to liberate our cultural heritage. Illustrated with the cautionary tales of extinct species and our lack of access to what remains of them.

I.

How many people know about the passenger pigeons? 

Martha, the last passenger pigeon to ever live on Earth, died on 1 September 1914. Less than 50 years before her, wild pigeons, as they were also called, flew in flocks of millions in the USA and Canada. Their numbers were so vast their arrival darkened the sky for hours, and branches of trees broke under the collective impact of their landing. Accounts describing how it felt to witness these birds were already unimaginable to most people at the beginning of the 20th century. Still, they are not a matter of poetry but factual natural history. 

Simon Pokagon, a Native American Pottawatomi author and advocate, as a young man lived in a time when he could still see passenger pigeons “move in one unbroken column for hours across the sky, like some great river(…) from morning until night”. He noted that even though his tribe already named the birds O-me-me-wog, “why European race did not accept that name was, no doubt, because the bird so much resembled the domesticated pigeon; they naturally called it a wild pigeon, as they called us wild men”. Pokagon writes about witnessing a method of hunting passenger pigeons by feeding them whiskey-soaked mast, rendering them flightless. He was shattered by a tragic parallel: his tribe was devastated by the introduction of mass produced alcohol by white men.

Passenger pigeons mentioned in the Indiana State Sentinel newspaper

Passenger pigeons mentioned in the Indiana State Sentinel newspaper. Public Domain. Source: Indiana State Sentinel/Wikimedia Commons https://bit.ly/2FySyuk

II.

The history of the passenger pigeons is accompanied by a ubiquitous disbelief. When the sight of millions was an integral part of the ecosystem and the everyday life of modern America, many did not believe a species of such numbers could go extinct. When their disappearance became an undeniable experience, people said they simply moved to South America. Today, chasing dreams of resurrection in the face of anthropogenic extinctions shows the still continuing failure to understand the finality of their death and come to terms with our responsibility. 

Deep under all this, there is a tragic lack of self-reflection on what we, humans, are capable of. Many might try to dismiss this is as being only a matter of older times and societies long since transcended. Yet, there is no need to dig deep. Don’t forget about the widespread denial of climate change. Don’t forget about the anti-narratives to the Black Lives Matter movement claiming systematic racism does not exist, denying any connections to colonialism.

In order to improve, our definition of what it means to be human must include recognising the horrors we are capable of in societies of past and present. The systematic oppression of others and the massacre of billions of animals were done by human beings. Us. We can become better only if we realise that besides all the wonders, this is us too and it can happen again if we don’t change the ways we live together.

 

Thylacine at Beaumaris Zoo, 1936

Thylacine at Beaumaris Zoo, 1936. Public Domain. Source: Ben Sheppard from Tasmanian Archives/Wikimedia Commons: https://bit.ly/35wsHhu

III.

A photo of one of the last thylacines, a species which became extinct when Benjamin died on 7 September 1936. Our imagination tries to grasp it through animals we know: it’s some kind of a tiger or a wolf. But it’s none of that, not even remotely related. What colours did it have? What did it sound like?

How do we feel when we look at photographs of animals long gone? Melancholy, the repressed fear of death, sorrow but also empathy, the desire to act – these are very important feelings. Black and white conveys a sadness of final loss that no colors can. Photography, no matter how deceptive it can be, is able to wash away cynicism and induce profoundly human emotions – ones we should feel when we think about injustice – human and non-human –, extinction or the climate crisis.

Looking at history provides a mental space where we can observe humanity and wonder about the whys and what ifs without the immediate frustration of the present. Exactly this removedness is what allows us to recognise and reflect on mistakes and right decisions.

We are supposed to learn from history, yet we don’t have access to it. Historical photographs of extinct animals are among the most important artefacts to teach and inform about human impact on nature. But where to look when one wants to see all that is left of these beings? Where can we access all the extant photos of the thylacine or the passenger pigeon? History books use photos to help us relate to narratives and see a shared reality. But how can we look through our own communities’ photographic heritage, share it with each other and use it for research and education?

Historical photos are kept by archives, libraries, museums and other cultural institutions. Preservation, which is the goal of cultural institutions, means ensuring not only the existence of but the access to historical materials. It is the opposite of owning: it’s sustainable sharing. Similarly, conservation is not capturing and caging but ensuring the conditions and freedom to live.

Even though most of our tangible cultural heritage has not been digitised yet, a process greatly hindered by the lack of resources for professionals, we could already have much to look at online. In reality, a significant portion of already digitised historical photos is not available freely to the public – despite being in the public domain. We might be able to see thumbnails or medium sized previews scattered throughout numerous online catalogs but most of the time we don’t get to see them in full quality and detail. In general, they are hidden, the memory of their existence slowly going extinct.

The knowledge and efforts of these institutions are crucial in tending our cultural landscape but they cannot become prisons to our history. Instead of claiming ownership, their task is to provide unrestricted access and free use. Cultural heritage should not be accessible only for those who can afford paying for it.

 

V.

Acknowledging the importance of access to information and cultural heritage, and the vital role of public institutions, we call on galleries, libraries, archives, museums, zoos and historical societies all over the world:

1.) Cultural institutions should reflect on and rethink their roles in relation to access. While the current policy landscape, lack of infrastructure and the serious budget cuts do not support openness, cultural institutions cannot lose sight of their essential role in building bridges to culture. Preservation must mean ensuring our cultural heritage is always easily accessible to anyone. Without free, public access, these items will only be objects to be forgotten and rediscovered again and again, known only by exclusive communities.

2.) Physical preservation is not enough. Digital preservation of copies and metadata is essential but due to the erosion of storage, files can get damaged easily. To ensure the longevity of digital items, the existence of the highest possible number of copies is required: this can be achieved by sharing through free access.

3.) Beyond preservation and providing access, institutions need to communicate the existence and content of their collections, our cultural heritage. Even with unlimited access, not knowing about the existence and context of historical materials is almost the same as if they didn’t exist. Approachability and good communication is crucial in reaching people who otherwise have less access to knowledge.

4.) Publicly funded institutions must not be transformed by the market logic of neoliberalism. The role of archives, museums and other cultural institutions, is more and more challenged by capitalism. They need to redefine themselves in ways that allow cultural commodities to be archived, described and shared in the frameworks of open access and open science. The remedy to budget-cuts and marketisation requires wide-scale, public dialogue and collaboration. Involving people from outside of academia has great potential: NGOs, volunteers, open-source enthusiasts, online and offline communities and passionate individuals are a vast resource and should be encouraged to participate. Akin to citizen scientists, there can be citizen archivists.

5.) Liberate and upload all digitised photographs and artworks that are in the public domain or whose copyrights are owned by public institutions. Remove all restrictions on access, quality and reuse while applying cultural and ethical considerations (“open by default, closed by exception”). Prioritize adapting principles and values recommended by the OpenGLAM initiative in the upcoming ‘Declaration on Open Access for Cultural Heritage’.

6.) All collections should be searchable and accessible in an international, digital photo repository. Instead of spending on developing various new platforms for each institution, the ideal candidate for an independent, central imagebase that provides the widest possible reach is Wikimedia Commons. Using Commons would provide an immediate opportunity to release cultural heritage while still allowing the long-term development of digital archives for institutional purposes. Operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, Commons is a community managed, open and free multilanguage platform. It provides access to millions of people by sharing images under open licences. Wikipedias of all languages are using Commons to illustrate their articles, and the photos appear on news sites, blogs, and research articles all over the world. Wikimedia is open to collaboration with GLAMs and many institutions are already active on the site including the Digital Public Library of America and the Cultureel Erfgoed. By using Commons, institutions will also benefit: the platform runs on a free and flexible software where photos can be described and categorised using structured data. Utilising the participation of a large and diverse community in catalogising, tagging, publicising and even researching can save time and cut costs. At the same time, institutions will still retain the physical copies and will be able to use the digital photos on their own platforms as well. The images on Commons will also cite their original holding institutions, granting further visibility to their collections and efforts.

Today we are so far ahead in forgetting our past that we came very close to repeating it. Providing free, universal access to culture and knowledge is one of the steps we must take to prevent this.

Passenger Pigeon profile view with shadow

Passenger Pigeon profile view with shadow. Public Domain. Source: J.G. Hubbard from Wisconsin Historical Society/Wikimedia Commons, https://bit.ly/3it0Xhx

A list of signatories is available on the Manifesto website: https://ppmanifesto.hcommons.org/