Data is becoming a new source of contentions in the current networked information environments. Ambiguity about ownership and rights, fear about loss and abuse, and the increased velocity of its generation and circulation, these and other factors contribute to an uneasy relation between oneself and the data one is involved in its production, consumption, and dissemination. Cultural institutions such as libraries and museums are curators of artifacts, and are now much involved in the digitization of their content collections. Output from these digitization efforts can be simply viewed as data. What can and shall libraries and museums do with it? Open data is a technological and social trend in publishing, sharing, and linking data online. Several actors in the library, archive and museum (LAM) community have been using techniques and practices of Linking Open Data (LOD) in making their collections readily available and linkable on the web. In this talk, we will review some of the practices in the LOD-LAM community, and plan to involve the audience with a discussion on what open data is,and what cultural institutions are for.