[OpenGLAM] City Archives Amsterdam

Tue Jan 22 18:27:58 UTC 2013

I don't think a paywall is, necessarily, the wrong thing to do. The
argument that these images *could not* exist in digital form without that
source of funding, is possibly legitimate. As long as the metadata is open
and they don't try to restrict use of the materials once you've accessed
them, I lean away from crying foul.

Compare to the Free Software Foundation's early funding model of selling CD
distributions<http://www.cs.utah.edu/dept/old/texinfo/gnu-bull-jun-94.html#pricing>of
Gnu software. Charging for distribution is never going to be the most
open, useful, or socially just way of funding cultural heritage, but there
may be times when it is the best practicable way to do a net good.

The question is about accountability. I don't know what the funding models
of the City Archives of Amsterdam look like, but I assume they are publicly
funded? Some scrutiny is appropriate. Is there a good reason why their
normal funding streams can't support this project? Is 50 cents an image a
realistic fee to cover cost (it seems a lot)? What happens to any surplus
money?

As a good example of a paywall where the answers to these questions don't
add up, see PACER; as a good example of an appropriate response, see RECAP.

- Tom

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 8:21 AM, Joris Pekel <joris.pekel at okfn.org> wrote:

> Dear OpenGLAM list,
>
> I would like to hear your opinion on the following.
>
> The City Archives of Amsterdam has just published some great results of
> their crowdsourcing project. Via the webpage velehanden.nl (many hands)
> around 1600 volunteers have indexed more than 300000 archival records from
> their militia register. The city archive had already scanned the records
> and now with the help of the volunteers these can also be searched.
>  (sidenote: the active volunteers could get points that they could spend to
> access a digital copy for free)
>
> At the same time, it is for me as a normal person not possible to get free
> access to these records. I can now search very well (and I think I found a
> record about my great-grandfather there) but I can not access the image
> unless I pay 50 cents. The records are old enough to all be in the public
> domain.
>
> The reasoning of the city archive for the paywall is that that by selling
> these scans, they have money for more digitisation efforts.
>
> Now, this paywall goes against all of my 'open' feelings, especially now
> the metadata has been crowdsourced and the images are PD. Still, finding
> money for digitisation sure is a difficult task and new business models
> still need to be found.
>
> It just feels like such a shame to lock this great material and volunteer
> effort away from the world, and think about the missed potential for
> researchers..
>
> Please share your thoughts. If possible, I will definitely adress them to
> the persons responsible.
>
> All the best,
>
> --
> Joris Pekel
> Community Coordinator
> Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://okfn.org
> http://twitter.com/jpekel
>
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>

-- 
-Tom Johnson
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