[open-heritage] Open data from cultural heritage organisations?

Sun Nov 28 16:45:25 UTC 2010

A late reply - I actually wrote this on the 24th but then didn't have 
internet access to send it.

On 23/11/2010 11:11, Rob Myers wrote:
> I'd like to ask about this so I can add some details to the wiki if 
> that's OK.
That reminds me - who is the wiki for?
> How is allowing commercial re-use problematic for museums? Is this to 
> do with their charter or funding, or more of a business plan or 
> cultural thing? Are there any examples of this that are public 
> knowledge and that it would be OK to link to on the wiki?
I can't think of a central list of the issues off-hand.  It might be a
matter of collating bits and pieces from different museums, as it could
be any combination of those reasons.  For example, many national museums
in the UK have a pattern of releasing as much 'low res' data as they can
for re-use, while reserving 'high res' (e.g. the 50mb TIFFs) files for
commercial sales and licensing, as this helps them meet government
demands to cover some of their costs while also meeting their own
missions to enable access to their collections.  Museums that charge
entry have different business models, and it also varies by type of
collection.

Various museum blogs and conference papers might provide examples - you
could try the 'Museums and the Web' papers at http://www.archimuse.com/
to start with.  The Museums Computer Group email list 
(http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/email-list/) or the Museum 3.0
site might also be a good place to ask people about restrictions in
place in different institutions.

cheers, Mia