Europeana and the Open GLAM Survey

There’s a lot of open access cultural heritage out there – well over 80,000,000 items – but naturally, it is dispersed across the thousands of digital platforms where GLAMs publish collections. This presents the Open GLAM Survey with a challenge: how to keep track of new and updated open data?

Aggregators make life easier

Since its inception in March 2018, the Open GLAM Survey has tracked the publication of open access content and data by institutions holding cultural heritage material. It has grown organically in scale and complexity through crowdsourced community engagement and extensive desk research. A regular task of the Open GLAM Survey is revisiting aggregator websites to look for new or updated data.

Aggregators of cultural heritage, such as Japan Search and DigitaltMuseum, and repositories like Wikimedia Commons, make survey research significantly easier because of their reach, longevity and their use of standardised rights statements and licences.

Finding open access content in Europeana

It had been a little while since we last checked the Europeana website in detail, so it was time to see if new open data had been added. (Note for transparency: I worked for Europeana when this article was written.) The ‘Can I use this?’ filter (shown below) on Europeana makes it easier to isolate open access content – over 25,000,000 items at the time of writing – in the portal.

Europeana partners with over forty long-term data aggregators across Europe and continuously services multiple consortium projects (usually involving content ingestion). As a result, data on the Europeana website change frequently so it’s always worthwhile checking for new open access content.

This time, a fresh trawl for Open GLAM data in Europeana unearthed 140 new institutions, all of which have now been added to the Survey. To generalise, most of the newly added institutions have published small amounts of open access content – probably just a fraction of the eligible, ie. public domain, collections they hold. (See Open Access Scope for more about this.) Nonetheless, Andrea and I believe it’s important that the Survey is sufficiently granular to capture these ‘micro’ instances of open access by cultural institutions.

In the Europeana context, these open data releases are typically the outcome of specific funded projects over the past dozen years. They do not imply – and should definitely not be considered as – wholesale open access policy by the institutions concerned.

What’s the impact on the Open GLAM Survey?

The Open GLAM survey today lists 1349 instances of institutional open access practice. (The Survey’s representation in Wikidata will be updated soon.) For convenience, I have listed the newly added institutions in alphabetical order by country and institution name in the Appendix below. Full details, including rights statements and direct links to all the open data, can be found in the Survey spreadsheet:

Did we miss something? Let me know.

Read more about the Open GLAM Survey

Uncovering the global picture of Open GLAM

Licensing policy and practice in Open GLAM

Open Access Scope in Open GLAM

What’s the latest picture of Open GLAM?

Austria

• Museum für Dorfkultur Großengersdorf
• Naturhistorisches Museum Wien
• Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
• Österreichisches Filmmuseum
• Schaubetrieb Ofenkachelmanufaktur Erndt
• Stadtmuseum Alte Hofmühle Hollabrunn
• Museum für Dorfkultur Großengersdorf
• Naturhistorisches Museum Wien
• Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
• Österreichisches Filmmuseum
• Schaubetrieb Ofenkachelmanufaktur Erndt
• Stadtmuseum Alte Hofmühle Hollabrunn

Belgium

• Amsab-Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis
• Centrum Agrarische Geschiedenis (CAG)
• Cinematek
• Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen
• Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium
• KU Leuven
• Université libre de Bruxelles

Bulgaria

• Библиотека РОДИНА – Стара Загора (Library Rodina – Stara Zagora)
• Институт за балканистика с център по тракология (Institute of Balkan Studies and Center of Thracology)
• Народна библиотека „ИВАН ВАЗОВ – Пловдив“ (Ivan Vazov National Library)
• Регионална библиотека „ХРИСТО СМИРНЕНСКИ“ – Хасково (Haskovo Public Library)

Croatia

• Gradska knjižnica Rijeka
• Muzej za umjetnost i obrt

Estonia

• Eesti Sõjamuuseum – Kindral Laidoneri Muuseum
• Tartu Ülikooli Loodusmuuseum

Finland

• Kansalliskirjasto
• Lusto – Suomen metsämuseo

France

• Archives départementales de la Gironde

Greece

• Ίδρυμα Αικατερίνης Λασκαρίδη (Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation)
• Μουσείο Γουλανδρή Φυσικής Ιστορίας (Goulandris Natural History Museum of Thessaloniki)

Hungary

• Egységes Magyarországi Izraelita Hitközség
• Evangélikus Országos Gyűjtemény – Budapest
• Fortepan
• Liszt Ferenc Emlékmúzeum és Kutatóközpont
• Országgyűlési Könyvtár
• Országos Rabbiképző-Zsidó Egyetem Könyvtára
• Országos Színháztörténeti Múzeum és Intézet
• Palotai Klára magángyűjteménye

Ireland

• Irish Traditional Music Archive
• Oireachtas Library & Research Service
• Royal Irish Academy

Italy

• Aldo Capitini Research Centre Foundation
• Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze
• Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma
• Fondazione Biblioteca Europea di Informazione e Cultura (BEIC)
• Galleria Civica di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
• Museo d’arte orientale
• Palazzo Madama
• Politecnico di Milano
• Università di Bologna
• Università di Trieste

Latvia

• Latvijas Akadēmiskā bibliotēka
• Rīgas vēstures un kuģniecības muzejs

Lithuania

• Rīgas vēstures un kuģniecības muzejs
• A. Baranausko ir A. Vienuolio-Žukausko memorialinis muziejus
• Alytaus Kraštotyros muziejus
• Antano ir Jono Juškų etninės kultūros muziejus
• Biržų krašto muziejus „Sėla“
• Kretingos muziejus
• Lietuvos jūrų muziejus
• Lietuvos liaudies buities muziejus
• Lietuvos švietimo istorijos muziejus
• Literatūrinis Aleksandro Puškino muziejus
• Marijampolės kraštotyros muziejus
• Marijos ir Jurgio Šlapelių namas muziejus
• Mažosios Lietuvos istorijos muziejus
• Nacionalinis Mikalojaus Konstantino Čiurlionio dailės muziejus
• Nalšios muziejus
• Panevėžio kraštotyros muziejus
• Rietavo Oginskių kultūros istorijos muziejus
• Šiaulių apskrities Povilo Višinskio viešoji biblioteka
• Tauragės krašto muziejus
• Trakų istorijos muziejus
• Vilniaus Gaono žydų istorijos muziejus
• Vilniaus universiteto Komunikacijos fakultetas
• Zarasų krašto muziejus

Netherlands

• Atria
• De Hollandsche Molen
• Gemeentearchief Barneveld
• Gemeentearchief Ede
• Gooi & Vecht Historisch
• Historisch Centrum Leeuwarden
• Museum Klok en Peel
• Nationaal Orgelmuseum
• NOC*NSF
• Stichting Archief- en Documentatiecentrum voor R.K. Friesland
• Stichting Oude Groninger Kerken
• Vrijheidsmuseum
• Zuiderzeemuseum