Open Access, Open Source, Open Data? Open Discussion!

Professional Forum
Neal Johnson, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, USA, Nik Honeysett, BPOC, USA, Duane Degler, Design for Context, USA

There is a swelling tide of interest and activity around the notion of “open culture”. Recent years have been full of activity in publishing museum data, images, and software under a variety of “open” approaches. Yet museums are also limited in their efforts by scarce resources, legacy technologies, difficult legal and policy challenges, deficits in strategic priority, and other constraints.

Initiatives are proliferating, aiming to foster communities of support and use around Open Access, Open Data, and Open Source collections of cultural heritage information. Many of us in the community have important experiences to share, and questions we want to pose to each other. Ideas and challenges should be brought to light and added to the general conversation, to help continue growing our capacity to share the information that we hold in the public trust.

The forum’s moderators will serve as catalysts encouraging attendees to participate and to steer the discussion. A lively and wide ranging conversation around both generalized and specific examples of Open Access, Open Data, and Open Source pursuits will demonstrate the collective problem space, illuminate inherent constraints, surface practical solutions, and – most important – will make clear the need to continue an open, collective, and regular dialog on the subject.

A successful outcome from the session would be to stimulate collaborations in pursuit of the true promise of the open culture movement. This event could, and should, be a springboard for further discussions on the topic at this conference and beyond.

Bibliography:
---Open Culture---
“Sharing is caring: Openness and sharing in the cultural heritage sector” (Merete Sanderhoff): http://sharecare14.wordpress.com/anthology/)
“Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World”: http://www.lcoastpress.com/book.php?id=352
Free Culture Movement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_culture_movement
Open Knowledge Foundation: https://okfn.org/
The Virtues of Promiscuity (Ed Rodley) https://medium.com/code-words-technology-and-theory-in-the-museum/the-virtues-of-promiscuity-cb89342ca038

---Open Access---
Images of Works of Art in Museum Collections: The Experience of Open Access (AW Mellon Foundation report): http://msc.mellon.org/research-reports/Open%20Access%20Report%2004%2025%2013-Final.pdf/view

Copyright calculators
Can I use that picture? http://www.youthedesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Infographic_CanIUseThatPicture.jpg
Copyright in Education (Fair Use) http://langwitches.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Copyright-Flowchart.jpg?utm_content=bufferfabbe&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Digital Millennium Copyright Act process: http://www.schwimmerlegal.com/2012/02/dmca-flowchart.html
Library Copyright Calculator: http://www.librarycopyright.net/resources/digitalslider/


---Open Data---
Open Data Wikipedia Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data
Example Museum Data Sets/APIs:
Cooper Hewitt: http://labs.cooperhewitt.org/2012/releasing-collection-github/
Tate Collections: http://www.tate.org.uk/about/our-work/digital/collection-data

---Open Source---
Open Source Initiative: http://opensource.org/
Creative Commons: https://creativecommons.org/
GLAM Creative Commons Wiki: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/GLAM
Mellon Foundation Space Projects:
http://www.researchspace.org/
http://conservationspace.org/
http://www.collectionspace.org/
http://www.archivesspace.org/

Cultural heritage open source code examples
IMA OSCI Toolkit: http://oscitoolkit.org/
CHNM Omeka: http://omeka.org/
CHNM Zotero: https://www.zotero.org/
Pachyderm: http://pachyderm.nmc.org/