Developing the RightsStatements.org Consortium in 2018

Us, them, everyone - who are the RightsStatements.org Consortium?

The Consortium is currently made up of five members - all international or national level aggregators.  These are the founding members of the  DPLA and Europeana, who were joined in 2017 by Canada’s Digital Library and Archives, India’s National Digital Library and Trove, National Library of Australia.  The work of the Consortium is led by a Steering Committee that continues to be chaired by Jill Cousins until 30th June 2018, with a newly appointed Vice-Chair Caitlin Horrall from Canada's Library and Archives. 

Two Working Groups undertake the development work for the consortium:  The Statements Working Group, co-chaired by Paul Keller and Emily Gore, and the Technical Working Group, co-chaired by Mark Matienzo and Antoine Isaac. Each member has a seat on the Steering Committee.  And the work of the Consortium is supported by a coordinator sourced from one of the members - at the moment that’s me! 

The plan for 2018 is a year is all about development and refinement of what we do

From zero to a five member consortium with 27 million digital objects around the world using the statements provided by the consortium -  2017 was a productive year.  Building on that, the Steering Committee have set four goals for the Consortium to achieve in 2018;

Goal #1 is to grow a thriving consortium by increasing membership to gain financial sustainability and reach across the globe. The consortium will then ensure take-up  and use of rights statements, proving the worth of such globally interoperable standards.

Goal #2 is to develop products and services that focus on the needs of new members by developing a model implementation cycle to make rights statements easily implementable and therefore operational. 

Goal #3 is to develop products and services that meet the needs and expectations of all members through the work of the Technical and Statements working groups, which will gather user needs and improvements. 

Goal #4 is to nurture a well-informed and active community by improving the channels of communication to create awareness of the value of rights statements and increase their use within the cultural heritage institutions worldwide.

The full business plan is published at RightsStatements.org, along with a Consortium Work Plan which provides more detail on how the Consortium plan to fulfill the four goals for 2018.

You can keep in touch via email, follow @RightsStmts on twitter or the RightsStatements Consortium on Linkedin.