Cultural heritage institutions can support use of their digital collections by making them available under open licenses and rights statements that allow other individuals to copy, redistribute and reuse another creator’s work. This page explains how and why Europeana encourages you to open up collections for reuse.
Copyright restrictions often prevent audiences from using and sharing digital cultural heritage objects. However, when you use rights statements and licenses that permit reuse, you allow the public to share, copy and modify the content without needing to seek permission (as long as they follow the conditions of the license used). This not only allows people to create new things by remixing digital cultural heritage, but can bring benefits for your institution:
It creates more possibilities for disseminating your collections via social media, blogs, online articles and repositories such as Wikimedia Commons. This helps to reach wider audiences.
It increases and deepens audience engagement with your collections.
It could help you fulfill your mission by stimulating creative, educational and research activities.
It helps strengthen the visibility of your institution, helping you stay relevant in a world where open access to digital cultural heritage is increasingly becoming the norm.
It can open up new funding possibilities to projects which request freely accessible content and metadata.
It removes barriers to access, which can save time and money for your institution. Often income from licensing doesn’t cover the expenses of managing the process, and there are other revenue strategies that institutions can utilise while embracing an open-access approach.
We encourage data providers to allow the reuse of content as widely as possible through our policies and frameworks.
Through the Europeana Public Domain Charter, we advocate for public domain content to remain in the public domain after digitisation. We believe that access to the public domain enables knowledge equity and encourages creativity. As a cultural heritage institution, you have the power to connect society to the wealth of content in the public domain by adhering to the principle that the digitisation of public domain content does not create new rights over it.
In addition, the Europeana Publishing Framework introduces four tiers of criteria for measuring content quality by taking into account not just the quality of the digital resources, but also the rights statements and licenses applied to them. The fewer copyright restrictions you place on them, the higher the potential reuse of objects and their value to the end users are.
When you share digital objects with rights statements and licenses that permit reuse with Europeana, we help you increase exposure, use and dissemination of your collections:
We can find imaginative ways of showcasing your collections and encouraging their creative reuse through activities like our puzzles, annual GIF IT UP competition, and colouring books.
We can create learning scenarios that enable teachers to use openly licensed digital objects from Europeana in their classroom.
We can strengthen scientific research by incorporating digital objects for which reuse is permitted into research environments such as CLARIN’s Virtual Language Observatory.
We can help you achieve exposure beyond our platform. For instance, the Birdie memory app was built using a collection of bird songs from Europeana. We also work closely with Wikimedia Commons. Many digital resources from Europeana were uploaded to Commons and Wikipedians are encouraged to use them in articles.
When we create and promote editorial content (like blogs, galleries or exhibitions) we include as much openly licensed content as possible so that the items we highlight can be reused by anyone.
In a major step towards greater open access in France, Paris Musées is releasing its digital collections into the public domain with a CC0 waiver. Europeana's Douglas McCarthy spoke with Philippe Rivière, Head of Communication and Digital at Paris Musées, to find out more.
The Cleveland Museum of Art announced a major new Open Access initiative, releasing images of its public-domain works for use without restriction. Jane Alexander, Chief Digital Information Officer at the CMA, gave Douglas McCarthy the inside story behind the announcement.
Freely offering high-resolution public domain images, the Musée de Bretagne is an open access pioneer in the French museum sector. Douglas McCarthy spoke with Céline Chanas and Fabienne Martin-Adam to learn about the genesis, impact and context of the museum’s open access policy.
Jacqueline Falk from Munich's Lenbachhaus tells Douglas McCarthy all about its new open access policy and Collections Online, offering free high-resolution images to download
Linda Spurdle, Digital Development Manager, tells Douglas McCarthy why the Trust is adopting open access policies and what it hopes to achieve.
Tom Scott, Head of Digital Engagement at London’s Wellcome Collection, shares his thoughts on digital strategy and the contribution of open data to a knowledgable and creative society.
Michal Čudrnák tells us how openly licensed collections and creative reuse help the Slovak National Gallery reach new audiences.
Mauritshuis curator Lea van der Vinde tells Douglas McCarthy how open access helps the Mauritshuis fulfil its mission
Collections Management Director Riitta Ojanperä tells us what’s driving the Finnish National Gallery's new Open Access policy
The Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg tells us how its shares its collections with the world.
Neal Stimler, Program Manager for Content Partnerships, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, tells us what is driving The Met's Open Access policy, introduced in February 2017
Get inspired by the innovative ways that educators, researchers, culture lovers and creatives are enriching educational resources, opening up new areas of research, or creating new art, games and entertainments on our reuse page.
Got more questions? Check out our FAQs on digital cultural heritage and the concept of openness, available through the Europeana Knowledge Base.