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

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

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

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

Our collections must be here!

Learning is interacting

Bildung ~ Building

People must be able to
”touch” the images

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

1. What inspired us

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

A promiscuous
museum?

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

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

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

Were our collections formed to
inspire design of makeup lines?

We are not owners,
but stewards
of our collections

“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

“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

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

"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

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

Participatory culture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. What we’ve done

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

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

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

In 2012, we released
160 high res images

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

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

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

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

Metro fence #01
Analog mashup
CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff
Message:
Art can be playful!

CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

CCBY 4.0 Merete Sanderhoff

Metro fence #2
Digital remix
CCBY 3.0 Frida Gregersen

CCBY 3.0 Frida Gregersen

CCBY 3.0 Frida Gregersen
Message:
Art can be helpful

CCBY 3.0 Frida Gregersen

CCBY 3.0 Frida Gregersen

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

2012
Breaking the ice

2014
Embracing the
Public Domain

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

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

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

Starting to snowball

Uptake by users

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

http://www.filipvest.dk/

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

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

Design challenge

Interactives

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

3. Why sharing is caring

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

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

“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…

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.

www.sharingiscaring.smk

”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

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