Wikimedian in Residence for the National Library of Scotland | 7/31/2014
CASE STUDY
II. Releasing Digital Content at the NLS
At the outset of the Wikimedian in Residence programme at the National Library of Scotland, the Library had no set policy regarding the licensing of its digital content and metadata. Licenses on content displayed in the Library’s Digital Gallery resources varied from copyrighted scans of public domain content to material released under a CC-BY-NC-SA license. There also were some cases where copyrighted material was displayed in the Digital Gallery with permissions. Overall, the Library’s approach to licensing was inconsistent and often unclear, both for users and Library staff. In all cases, the content was held under licenses too restrictive for its inclusion on Wikimedia Commons, making it difficult for the residency to achieve some of its stated objectives.
Policy draft:
In early 2014, Digital Access Manager Gill Hamilton submitted a Metadata and Digital Content Licensing draft policy to the Digital National Librarians’ Digital Group (DNL-Digital) for discussion and feedback. The draft policy offered three licensing options: the most open, option one, proposed placing all NLS-created metadata and all public domain content into the public domain on a CC-0 license, regardless of the image resolution or quality. The least open, option three, proposed placing all NLS-created metadata and low-resolution/quality public domain digital content under a CC-0 license while retaining high-resolution content for income generation. The policy was revised and redrafted with input from the DNL-Digital; at the end of February 2014, DNL-Digital groups opted to submit option three to the Corporate Leadership Team (CLT) for final approval.
Institutional concerns:
While the draft policy was being discussed and implemented, a number of concerns were raised with regards to its parameters and the effect that this might have on the Library in the long term. Risks identified included:
- Reduction to income generation
- Loss of control over NLS content
- Potential for damage to Library’s representation
Procedures were identified and set in place to confirm the likelihood of these risks becoming a concern for the Library, and to mitigate them wherever possible. These mitigating procedures included:
- An annual policy review
- Request for attribution to be outlined in procedural documentation once policy is implemented
- Files to be wrapped with EXIF, IPCC metadata indicating the source is the National Library of Scotland
In the end, all risks were deemed acceptable and the policy was approved by the CLT in March 2014, to be implemented as of April of that year. In addition to the risk assessment, staff expressed concerns that releasing content to Wikimedia Commons would undermine the use or effectiveness of existing digital resources provided by the NLS.
The Wikimedian in Residence argued that Wikimedia Commons has a different aim, and therefore focuses on a different (and much wider) audience than any NLS digital resource, and that releasing content would not only enhance both platforms, but would increase traffic to the NLS digital gallery. This was supported with evidence from other GLAM-Wiki collaborations where content was released, as at the British Library and the National History Museum, as well as from preliminary metrics provided by the Library’s own website analytics.
