3.3. A deep dive into the UK GLAM Sample: How do UK GLAMs compare to each other?
Note: This section discusses data on all 195 GLAMs in the UK GLAM Sample, which is different to the sample discussed immediately above.
Created for this report, the UK GLAM Sample initially consisted of 350 organisations, including Independent Research Organisations (IROs) and Research Centre Institutes (RCIs), GLAMs associated with TaNC Foundation and Discovery projects, UK GLAMs in the Open GLAM Survey, and other UK GLAMs and related organisations. An initial review was performed to identify and remove organisations outside the scope of inquiry (e.g., no permanent collections). The final sample of 195 organisations are distributed across the UK as follows: Channel Islands (1); England (154); Isle of Man (1); Northern Ireland (5); Scotland (28); Wales (6).
This section looks at the extent to which UK GLAMs engage with open GLAM and how UK GLAMs compare overall.[1] Two datasets in this sample do not appear in the global data on UK GLAM instances: the Archaeology Data Service and Culture Grid.[2] This brings the total UK open GLAM count to 82, rather than 80, for the purposes of this section.
3.3.1. Categorisation of GLAMs
This phase of the research sought to understand how UK GLAMs publish collections across websites and external platforms, and under what reuse parameters. For each GLAM included in the sample, the policies were assessed from two different lines of inquiry:
What is the majority approach taken by the GLAM; and
What is the most open approach taken by the GLAM (i.e., the application of open licences or public domain tools[3])?
It is important to view each GLAM against these two axes, as they can overlap or diverge significantly. Interpreting them in isolation reveals two very different pictures of UK engagement and fails to capture the complexity of each GLAM’s approach, as well as the overall trends across the sector.
For example, if we investigate a GLAM’s most open approach, the picture is similar to the UK data discussed in Section 3.2. In total, 82 or 42.1% of UK organisations surveyed publish one or more assets using open licences or public domain tools, contributing a total of 10,487,115 open assets or 14.8% of all global assets (that could be counted via publication platforms). A total of 113 or 57.9% in the UK GLAM Sample have not yet engaged with open access. This paints a relatively healthy picture of open GLAM for the UK heritage sector.
However, if we look at the majority approach taken by each GLAM and collect data such as where assets are published, how many and under what tools and licences, we understand that 144 or 73.8% in the UK GLAM Sample operate policies of closed or all rights reserved for eligible assets. In reality, this number is much higher. Because the discussion in this section pertains to the limited
- ↑ See Section 1.4.1. for a discussion of data collection.
- ↑ These aggregators do not comply to the open GLAM data sampling for various reasons, in addition to Culture Grid no longer being in use. Volume and distribution of licences and tools used are not calculated for these platforms due to the variety of contributors and inability to filter data.
- ↑ See Figure 4 in Section 3.1.
