[open-heritage] Europeana factsheet on Open Linked Data

Thu Nov 25 10:58:52 UTC 2010

On Nov 24, 2010, at 11:53 , ianibbo at gmail.com wrote:

> hehe boring was perhaps the wrong word... What I *meant* to say was this:
> 
> Cultural institutions are not bad at sharing already. OK, they can be
> better, but on the whole they are pretty good. I'd say they aren't bad
> at sharing digitally either, compared to some domains anyway. Most of
> the arguments for linked data and open licenses go something like
> linked data + open licenses -> data sharing. But I've encountered a
> fair few people in the domain (I'm not saying I'm one of them, just
> that I've detected this) who have spotted that we do tend to affirm
> the consequent in this argument, by saying that licensing and linked
> data are necessary for sharing. But the truth is we've come a long way
> so far with simple sharing without explicit licenses and without the
> semantic web (Thats before we get into conflating linked data and the
> semantic web). The fact is, sharing is a prerequisite for the need for
> open licenses and linked data. The issue is that once an institution
> has invested in export services, they are often reticent to invest a
> second time to change those routines (Go back and add explicit
> licenses, use linking engines and algorithms,  etc).  What we need is
> to influence people to start and build in these explicit license
> clauses in their metadata schemes at the source level, rather than the
> aggregation level.
I agree in part,

Cultural Heritage institutes do share, many of these are bilateral agreements to share repositories of metadata, bibliographic data being amongst the most popular.
The efforts to unlock this data structurally with LOD will be beneficial to both the institute that unlocks as well as the users of that data. An aggregator like Europeana provides the architecture, technology and infrastructure to help these institutes see and reap the benefits of LOD. I see your argument that these efforts should not only be top-down but also bottom-up, and I am very interested in examples of initiatives that helps CHIs to unlock their data.

> 
> So, in pondering a clear guide to open licenses in CH (And we should
> probably do a wiki page for why cultural institutions need linked data
> / semantic web?) what I was trying to do was find some really good
> atomic (exciting?) arguments for moving forward with open licenses and
> linked data which aren't predicated on needing them to share data.

Our younger generation live on the internet and we often come across the argument that "if it is not online it does not exists". This sentence should actually be "If it can't be found than it does not exist." This directly plays on the relevancy of CHIs in the digital world. A world where crowdsources wikipedia is becoming more relevant and authoritative on subject where CHIs have a far more (and accurate) information to contribute. LOD is not only a way for these institutes to remain relevant but also to reclaim their place of authority in digital world. 

Note that these arguments are not based on sharing but on exercising their function in a changing environment. 

> Now... I'm more than prepared to accept that at some point in the near
> future data sharing will be predicated on open licenses and linked
> data. Right now tho, I worry we will turn people off rather than on by
> telling them they need open licenses and linked data to share. I worry
> that people will think we're trying to sell them something they don't
> need.

I agree there are many misconceptions and fears concerning this topic

> It's OK if you're on the "Inside" of the open data community,
> but outsude "What extra do I get by adding a license property and
> setting it to an open license" is a question I don't feel I've
> answered really well for myself yet (In this domain).

Licensing should also not be used as an argument but as an instrument for reaching a goal. Licenses are by definition facilitating. Wouldn't you agree?
> 
> With apols for rambling.
> 

Best,

Maarten Zeinstra
> e
> 
> On 24 November 2010 09:49, Maarten Zeinstra <mz at kl.nl> wrote:
>> Hello list,
>> I've received your discussion on the Europeana fact sheet on Linked Open
>> Data. As one of the authors I would like to respond to the questions you had
>> in that discussion.
>> Adrian asked:
>> 
>> In April Europeana already published a "Public Domain Charter"[3]
>> adressing the licensing of digitized public domain works as Europeana
>> content. Has there already been any cooperation on open content or an
>> exchange of ideas between the OKFN and Europeana?
>> 
>> 1. There is a collaboration between the OKFN and Europeana. We meet in the
>> COMMUNIA network (Most of us in WG6). Members of the Europeana team that
>> works on the policy documents and technical specifications for Europeana's
>> rights infrastructure, and provider agreements participate in this network.
>> 2. One of our major collaboration with the OKFN is developing public domain
>> calculators. We are developing software tools to help determine the
>> copyright status of a work in many european jurisdictions. We communicate
>> with the OKFN frequently on this subject, for further information see the
>> discussion on pd-discuss at lists.okfn.org or OKFN's wiki.
>> 3. Europeana's Public Domain Charter can also be seen as a continuation of
>> COMMUNIA's work on the Public Domain Manifesto. Europeana continues to
>> search on how to best present work that has fallen in the public domain on
>> her website. For example by being the first major adopter of Creative
>> Commons' Public Domain Mark.
>> 4. We are also exploring matters like http://www.bibliographica.org/ with
>> Rufus Pollock of OKFN, of which I do not have any details at the moment.
>> I believe these answer the questions Adrian had on Europeana/OKFN.
>> Ian also raised an interesting point:
>> 
>> IMHO cultural institutions are already well advanced
>> on the "Open" agenda. The problem for us is that promoting
>> open-licenses, without being able to easily piggy-back the argument on
>> "open access" (Lower case intentional) is tricky (And potentially
>> boring as heck).
>> 
>> 4. We also believe that most cultural heritage institutions are sharing some
>> of their metadata in one form or another.This fact sheet on Linked Open Data
>> is part of a more structural approach to get really good Linked Open Data
>> out there. This means in the correct format and with a useable licensing
>> scheme. In the analog world archives and museums are a major authority on
>> the information they hold. This is not true (yet) in the digital world.
>> Europeana is trying to help its partner to establish this position in the
>> digital world as well.
>> 
>> B.T.W. I believe these complex issues are not boring at all :)
>> 
>> If you have any other questions feel free to contact me, you can also post
>> them to this mailinglist wich I will keep following, I don't know why I
>> didn't subscribe earlier.
>> Best,
>> 
>> Maarten Zeinstra
>> 
>> Kennisland | Knowledgeland
>> 
>> T: +31.20.575.6720 | M: +31.6.43.053.919 | S: mzeinstra
>> 
>> www.kennisland.nl | www.knowledgeland.org
>> 
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>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Ian Ibbotson
> W: http://ianibbo.me
> E: ianibbo at gmail.com
> skype: ianibbo
> twitter: ianibbo
> 
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