scale and implement for the vast majority of GLAMs.
By contrast, aggregators and platforms can offer flexibility. Many also have advantages and perks. They can provide greater publication sustainability and human-facing support. Some offer funding and opportunities for collaboration, training and knowledge exchange. Images on these platforms receive an enormous volume of page views, which can increase exposure to the GLAM and its collection at higher rates than via the GLAM's own website and searchable digital collections.
The aggregators and platforms used can impact how open GLAM proceeds due to the systems and rights statements that shape participation. Some support the technical application of standardised statements in the interface and employ staff to review datasets or provide copyright support prior to publication. Use of open licences and public domain statements are a condition of entry for many. Wikimedia platforms require uploaders to apply CC BY-SA or more permissive statements to content. Wikimedia may condition digitisation funding upon publishing eligible assets to the public domain.
Douglas McCarthy (Europeana) offered insight explaining:
As seen in Europe, aggregators play an important role in publishing digital collections from small organisations. When combined with the fact that aggregators (generally) insist on rights labelling, this creates the conditions for relatively small collections being recorded and surprisingly prominent in the open GLAM survey. In the UK, Art UK serves this role.
The inverse of this is that national and large institutions tend to not join large scale aggregation projects, and therefore avoid having to adhere to aggregators' data models, including standardised rights statements for their collections.
Participants noted policies of aggregators and platforms have taken chunks out of the collection and required GLAMs to be more open, which they see as desirable because of the drive for engagement.
3.5. Open GLAM and the UK: a conclusion
Highlights from the data reveal:
The large majority of UK open GLAM instances are local and regional organisations.
Data aggregators and external platforms have had a huge impact on open GLAM representation in the UK. Among these, Art UK accounts for 58.8% of all UK open GLAM instances.
The UK's largest holders of cultural collections are not open. A few exceptions make significant contributions in volume.
7 UK GLAMS embrace open access as a matter of policy. 6 take a public domain compliant approach; 1 takes an open compliant approach. All appear to hold back high-resolution assets for commercialisation.
Some open GLAM activity can be directly attributed to funding obligations.
Open access is at risk of decline or stagnation. This finding extends to GLAMs currently engaging in open GLAM activity, as well as a wider trend emerging across the GLAM sector. Indeed, interviews and web-based research revealed clear evidence of decline or stagnation. Many
