Sharing is Caring. Opening of the collections of SMK. Keynote speech for the conference Public Domain. Gratis Kultur für Alle? Eine Arbeitstagung. 20 April 2015 in Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel, Switzerland.

1. Sharing is Caring
Opening up
the collections of SMK
Filippino Lippi (c. 1457-1504),
The Meeting of Joachim and Anne outside the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, 1497.
112,5x124 cm. KMSsp40. Public Domain
Merete Sanderhoff
Curator of digital museum practice
http://www.slideshare.net/MereteSanderhoff
@MSanderhoff

2. Three main points
1. What inspired us
2. What we’ve done
3. Why sharing is caring

3. Map of the Internet 1.0 by Jay Simons, Deviant Art http://jaysimons.deviantart.com/art/Map-of-the-Internet-1-0-427143215
But first,
a bit of background

4. Navigating in
a sea of images?
Francesco Guardi (1712-93), The Bucintoro Festival of Venice. The B
"Bucintoro", the Doge's State Barge, on Ascension Day, 1780-93. KM

6. Our collections must be here!

7. Learning is interacting

8. Bildung ~ Building

9. People must be able to
”touch” the images

10. Galleries
Libraries
Archives
Museums
Openness as strategy
http://openglam.org/

11. 1. What inspired us

12. A beacon
Closed for renovation for 10 years 2003-12
Investment in digitising the collections
Open data and images key in the museum brand by the
re-opening in 2012
400,000 images for free download
Rijksstudio with >200,000 profiles
Open API

13. A promiscuous
museum?

14. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijkss

15. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio-award

16. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/rijksstudio/142328--nominees-rijksstudio-award/creaties/ba595afe-452d-46bd-9c8c-48dcbdd7f0a4

17. Were our collections formed to
inspire design of makeup lines?

18. We are not owners,
but stewards
of our collections

19. “Our primary mission is to ‘tell the truth’. We put as
much quality in our work as possible. That is why
we share the best quality we have. If people google
‘The Milkmaid’ by Vermeer then we want them to
find our good quality image, not all the bad and
deformed versions of this beautiful painting.”
Lizzy Jongma
data manager, Rijksmuseum

20. “If they want to have a Vermeer on their
toilet paper, I’d rather have a very high-
quality image of Vermeer on toilet paper
than a very bad reproduction.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/arts/design/museums-mull-public-use-of-online-art-images.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Taco Dibbits
Samlingschef, Rijksmuseum

21. But wait…
aren’t we
making money
on images?

22. "Everyone (…) wants to recoup costs
but almost none claimed to actually
achieve or expected to achieve this.
Even those services that claimed to
recoup full costs generally did not
account fully for salary costs or
overhead expenses."
http://www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/USMuseum_SimonTanner.pdf
Simon Tanner,
King’s College London

23. Tanner in practice
at SMK
Annual turnover on images sales
~ 70,000 CHF (before 2012)
Not counting administrative costs
Annual operational budget
~ 1,1 million CHF

24. Participatory culture

25. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/11/19/wikimedia-india-hosts-wikipedia-women-workshop-in-mumbai/

26. In 2015, there are more
than 22 million registered
Wikipedians worldwide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians

27. How can museums support
– and benefit from –
this cognitive surplus*?
*

28. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-C-5
Infuse the web
with trusted resources

29. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Watch_(painting)
Become key reference
for your collections online

30. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Nightwatch_by_Rembrandt.jpg

31. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Nightwatch_by_Rembrandt.jpg
Flush out the poor copies

32. 2. What we’ve done

33. Bottom up approch
Johannes Simon Holzbecker, Hyacints, from Gottorfer Codex, 1649-59, KKSgb2947/26. Public Domain.

34. Bottom up approch
Johannes Simon Holzbecker, Hyacints, from Gottorfer Codex, 1649-59, KKSgb2947/26. Public Domain.
Not closed for 10 years
Don’t have millions of Euro to
digitise our collections

35. What can
you do
today?
Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy, Smithsonian Institution
SMK digital advisory board meeting, November 2011

37. In 2012, we released
160 high res images

38. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

39. Phasing out image sales
We are not here to sell cultural heritage!
> We are here to preserve and provide
access to cultural heritage
> We are here to support value creation
in society*
* Inspired by Jacob Wang, National Museum of Denmark
http://www.slideshare.net/jacobwang/collections-online-national-museum-of-denmark-official-launch-october-8th-2014

40. Copyright is “a little coral reef
of private right jutting up from
the ocean of Public Domain.”
A sea of images…
Paul Torremans, Copyright law: a handbook of contemporary research, 2007

41. Pilot projects
to demonstrate
value and impact
of open images
CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

42. Metro fence #01
Analog mashup
CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

43. CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

44. CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff
Message:
Art can be playful!

45. CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

46. CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

47. CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

48. Metro fence #2
Digital remix
CCBY 3.0 Frida Gregersen

49. CCBY 3.0 Frida Gregersen

50. CCBY 3.0 Frida Gregersen
Message:
Art can be helpful

51. CCBY 3.0 Frida Gregersen

52. CCBY 3.0 Frida Gregersen

53. Winner of the Fence Post 2013
by public vote
CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

54. 2012
Breaking the ice

55. 2014
Embracing the
Public Domain

56. http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

57. The difference
It is ours, but we
permit you to reuse
It is yours, so you have
the right to reuse

58. Today, SMK offers 25,000 images
in the Public Domain for free download
The quality and resolution varies,
but it’s a work in progress

59. Starting to snowball

60. Uptake by users

61. http://www.eyeqinnovations.com/
Uptake by artists

62. http://www.filipvest.dk/

63. 160 high res images
=
824 file usages
630 individual pages
27 languages
Uptake by Wikipedia

64. Facilitation of re-use
remains vital
SMK Fridays – monthly evening events
SMK Friday 29 May
Focus on remix and re-use
of public domain artworks
Collaboration with Europeana Creative
and Aalto University

65. Design challenge

68. Interactives

70. Wiki workshops
Inviting art historians,
students and amateurs
to learn wiki-editing
together with us at SMK
while using our images

71. 3. Why sharing is caring

72. Main arguments for open
1. Ethical
What was in the Public Domain
should stay in the Public Domain*
2. Mission-based
We are not here to sell cultural heritage
3. Economic
Openness is better for business, in a sea of images
*Harry Verwayen, Deputy Director, Europeana

73. Today, we can offer online services that
are available from everywhere to anyone
seeking "to participate in the cultural life
of the community, to enjoy the arts and to
share in scientific advancement and its
benefits".
Article 27.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Achieving the
Enlighenment vision

74. “The Age of Enlightenment fostered
dreams of a united humanity, building
on knowledge, education, and equal
access to participating in society and
culture. With digital technologies, we
have stepped closer to fulfilling that
dream…

75. How do we embrace this
unique opportunity to make
our institutions and work
truly support a connected
world?”
Merete Sanderhoff, Foreword to Sharing is Caring.
Openness and sharing in the cultural heritage sector.
SMK 2014.

76. www.sharingiscaring.smk

77. ”Our role is still more to facilitate public
use of cultural heritage for learning,
creativity, and innovation. Today,
learning happens in reciprocity.
We are all a part of the web.
We shape each other.”
http://www.altinget.dk/kultur/artikel/dannelse-i-digitaliseringens-
tidsalder?ref=newsletter&refid=15337&utm_source=Nyhedsbrev&utm_medium
=e-mail&utm_campaign=kultur
Mikkel Bogh
Director, SMK

78. Thank you.
Filippino Lippi (c. 1457-1504),
The Meeting of Joachim and Anne outside the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, 1497.
112,5x124 cm. KMSsp40. Public Domain
Merete Sanderhoff
Curator of digital museum practice
http://www.slideshare.net/MereteSanderhoff
@MSanderhoff