[OpenGLAM] Requesting input and liaisons towards open collections in a very long term archival project (Lunar Mission One)

Thu Jan 1 17:05:00 UTC 2015

OpenGLAM community – Happy 2015!

I am assisting and advising on a very long term archival project, and would
love to make contact with a range of open collection advocates for
potential input and collaboration.

Lunar Mission One (http://lunarmissionone.com/) is a project which just
achieved its initial kickstarter of £600+ for its efforts (the start of
what it will ultimately need). In 2024, an existing ESA science mission
will be drilling and extracting a core sample at the lunar south pole, to
perform one of the deepest analyses yet of lunar geology and history.

Then, Lunar Mission One will be depositing a very long term archive at the
site. (
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lunarmissionone/lunar-mission-one-a-new-lunar-mission-for-everyone)
I'm advising David Iron, founder of the LM1 trust, on ways to proceed with
part of the collection.

The mission seeks to compile and deposit a comprehensive reflection of
Earth’s cultural heritage, as well as a vast biodiversity
database/resource. Media formats, capacities, and resilience issues are
being determined over time; I am assisting with the cultural archive
project. The archive is being funded in part by donors who in return get to
send a cache of data and a hair sample as DNA: the appeal to individuals is
as a kind of time capsule. But the comprehensive archives represent a
cultural opportunity above and beyond that aspect.

While the lunar archive will be deposited for the very long term, mirrors
on Earth will be live/interactive, and will continue to evolve after the
static lunar archive is established. So the core seed archive itself could
potentially be a very unique and valuable collection of collections (a
meta-collection).

I’ve worked with the Long Now Foundation (http://longnow.org/) in the past
on a pilot project with similar long term goals, but in this case, there is
a relatively short development period for a comprehensive cultural archive.
The obvious strategies of encoding existing comprehensive collections in
robust media are on the table, but as an advocate for open access, I am
particularly interested in including a diverse range of open collections,
particularly across the humanities. (Seeming redundancies across
collections may allow a kind of comparative, Rosetta Stone effect.) I’m
also seeking continuing input on the logical structuring of other
collections that may go into the whole.

If you might be an institutional contact (wikipedia/wikimedia; other
digital GLAM collection types), or are generally interested in helping to
build a comprehensive archive of humanity’s heritage with open access
collections as a cornerstone feature, please contact me at
heath.rezabek at gmail.com. How I proceed will depend on the diversity and
reach of interested parties.

Consultation is at an early stage, and the above is my own interpretation
of current goals. For the moment, I'd like to limit this inquiry to the
OpenGLAM community here, and gauge response as I confer with Lunar Mission
One.

If interested in exploring further, please email me directly with name,
title or organizational affiliation (simply for context; I don't assume you
speak for your organization at this stage), and a brief note on the scope
of your interest.

Thanks,

- Heath

heath.rezabek at gmail.com

-- 
Heath Rezabek  //  labs.vessel.cc
Icarus Interstellar  /  FarMaker Design Corps  //  icarusinterstellar.org
Open Knowledge Foundation  /  Texas Ambassador for the OKFn  //  okfn.org
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