Openness, Efficiency and Closed Infrastructures

The concept of data spaces, that the European Commission is pursuing, is not only a technical one; it also implies a political constitution. Data spaces such as GAIA-X do not require centralised management. The operation of such a data space can take place within a federation that establishes the means to control data integrity and […]

Openness, and Some of its Shades

Openness, that lighthouse of the 20th century, came along with open interfaces (APIs). In the case of galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs), it was the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, or OAI-PMH for short. At the time, the idea was to provide an interface that makes metadata available in interoperable formats and […]

Orientation in Turbulent Times

Cultural heritage institutions such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs) currently find themselves in a difficult situation: Generative AI models have fundamentally changed the meaning of the term “openness”. Until recently, the open provision of digital cultural heritage was an absolute ideal, as was the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR). There is a […]