Presentation from Kelly Forbes, Digital Engagement and Communications Manager at Museums Galleries Scotland, on the importance of open knowledge to the future of the Scottish museum sector at Working with Open Knowledge event 4th Sept.
6. “If I have seen
further it is by
standing on the
shoulders of giants.”
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Editor's Notes
Girl in a White Kimono, George Hendrik Breitner, 1894 (bright ner)
In 2014 Rijksmuseum partnered with Etsy to introduce it’s images from the Rijksstudio to the community on Etsy.
They now hold an annual design competition, the Rijksstudio Award recognising the best creations from the Make your own Masterpiece area of the site.
Cooper Hewitt has access quality images freely available on their site but charge for higher quality ‘commercial’ images. It includes a copy and paste citation for Wikipedia on every image page to allow people to use the images in wiki commons.
Open knowledge isn’t just about images releases. Releasing metadata is important too. A reason we often hear against the release of metadata from museums is that the information is of too low a quality to release. What we’ve found is that people will often send back cleaned or converted in to other formats.
Examples of museums who have made their metadata available, Tate, CooperHewitt, Museum Victoria,
http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/11/the-dimensions-of-art.html Tate data about art transformed back in to art.
(Not an obscure reference to Lost)
That figure is the number of page views for the english language Wikipedia.org for March 2015
There are roughly 400 million unique visitors and 22 million external links from sites like Wikimedia Commons
People googling for information are more likely to visit wikipedia than a private website because its a respected source of open knowledge
WHY WOULD YOU NOT GO WHERE YOUR AUDIENCE ARE???
Open knowledge stimulates innovation and creativity allowing others to access greater information for their own learning.
As custodians of the world’s cultural heritage we have a responsibility to make our collections as accessible as possible
open knowledge is going to help museums and galleries achieve the aims of the National Strategy. Digital Transformation
Most notably, Aim 6a and 1bii to Increase the ways in which the sector can share Scotland’s collections and culture with visitors to Scotland and abroad.
Making more collections open and accessible online is a way for the Scottish museums sector to showcase it’s unique collections and expertise to a global audeince, not just the ones who walk through your doors. Increasing awareness of who you are and what you do.