Open media and/or open collections refers to open digital media and open digital collections produced during the digitisation and management of physical collections, as described immediately above. Not all digital media and digital collections published online are open.
Digital surrogate refers to a digital reproduction of an object. In its public task, the National Archives defines digital surrogate as “a representation of a record, usually an image, stored in digital form.”[1]
All eligible data describes when GLAMs release all digital surrogates of public domain works under open licences and public domain tools as a matter of policy.
Some eligible data describes when GLAMs release some digital surrogates of public domain works under open licences and tools on an individual project or output basis as a matter of practice.
Open GLAM is an independent movement associated with the Open Knowledge Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation, and Creative Commons. Open GLAM relates to and overlaps with other open initiatives, like open access, open culture, open science, open data, open source, and open innovation.
Instance refers to a GLAM-level policy or practice on open access. For example, instance can refer to the Smithsonian Institution, which releases almost four million high resolution images to the public domain (CC0) on its own website, or the Bath Postal Museum, which releases one jpeg at 550×685 pixels at 72dpi to the public domain (Public Domain Mark) on Art UK. Both are treated as one instance for the purpose of tabulating an open access policy or practice.
Volume refers to the number of digital surrogates published by or across GLAMs. Using the examples above, the volume of open assets published by the Smithsonian is nearly 4,000,000 assets (CC0); the volume of open assets published by the Bath Postal Museum is 1 asset (Public Domain Mark). Volume does not imply unique assets. There can be overlap where GLAMs contribute open assets to more than one platform.
Reuse refers to both use (first use) and reuse (downstream use) of digital media.
Data aggregator refers to an organisation that collects data from one or more sources, provides some value-added processing, and repackages the result in a reusable form.
Technical protection measures are actions taken to block or limit access to a work, such as watermarking, disabling download or uploading the lowest quality of images.
Moral rights refer to the noneconomic rights that protect the personal and reputational, rather than monetary, value of a work to its creator.
1.4. Methodology
This report draws on several types of information:
- Existing empirical data on open GLAM globally, specifically the ‘Survey of GLAM open access policy and practice’, (‘Open GLAM Survey’);[2]
- New empirical data on UK GLAMs, including data from:
- A survey of access to the digital collections of 195 UK GLAMs across internal and
- ↑ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/re-using-public-sector-information/about-psi/public-task/
- ↑ Douglas McCarthy and Andrea Wallace, “Survey of GLAM open access policy and practice,” http://bit.ly/OpenGLAMsurvey
