Spreading the Creative Commons and Open GLAM principles in Brazil
How Creative Commons Brasil social-distancing approached GLAM institutions and talked about CC licenses and Open GLAM principles during the pandemic
Text in Portuguese: Giovanna Fontenelle & Juliana Monteiro
Text in English: Giovanna Fontenelle
Illustrations: Patrícia Yamamoto
In this case study, Creative Commons Brasil’s Open GLAM members analyze their endeavor of contacting GLAM institutions in early 2020, to help Brazilian heritage institutions better understand how Creative Commons licenses work, mainly due to the state of social distance caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The activity had positive impacts and triggered some actions for the chapter. Yet, for this initiative to reach its full potential, some solutions and recommendations were identified through the reflection of this case study.
The background
The first case of COVID-19 in Brazil was identified on February 26, 2020. It didn’t take even three weeks. As of March 16, several Brazilian heritage institutions began to close for an “unspecified period”. The word “unspecified”, used by many institutions, seemed meaningless. Until then, most people did not understand the dimension of the problem.
At first, institutions were prepared to close for a few weeks, maybe a month. With the cases increasing and the pandemic worsening, there didn’t seem to be a way out. It was necessary to find a solution to the fact that the institutions were physically inaccessible. All that remained was to, finally, go digital.
Meanwhile, in February, Creative Commons Brasil had just created a coordination dedicated to Open GLAM. It would focus, throughout 2020, on helping heritage institutions open their collections using CC licenses to facilitate the process.
And it was the second week of April when Juliana Monteiro, with the help of Mariana Valente and Giovanna Fontenelle, decided to get in touch with some institutions and make an open call by email. After all, at that moment of extreme uncertainty, it would be important to share with some institutions that there were alternatives to the physical space and create a more direct communication channel.
The initiative also considered the importance of CCBR to spread the CC licenses with GLAM institutions, which was a long-standing objective of the group. With the pandemic, it soon became clear that GLAMs would have to further strengthen their online presence, which would require an effort to identify the copyright status of images, texts, and multimedia resources — and nothing more convenient than encouraging institutions to study the possibility of applying CC licenses to materials that could be released.
The evaluation
We contacted and were contacted. We created a special email address for the chapter to serve as a contact for institutions, ccbrglam@gmail.com, and more than 30 email addresses were collected, linked to different museums, libraries, institutes, departments, and foundations, spread over several Brazilian states. The message designed to explain the situation, the role of CC, and how the group could help was brief but objective:
“…In the current moment when more than ever museums, archives, libraries, and similar institutions have been called upon to contribute to the social well-being through virtual exhibitions, lives on social media, and the release of online content, we would like to make ourselves available to, acting within our mission, talk about any questions you and your team may have about copyright and how to use a Creative Commons license, or about issues involving open licensing digitization projects that are in our expertise.”
Responses were mixed. The chosen emails were institutional, individual, and, sometimes, from known people of our network. Responders were divided into those who automatically answered messages to clear their inboxes and those who seemed quite interested and wanted to set up a conversation.
From then on, we started talking to those institutions. Initially, there were eight: Museu da Cidade de São Paulo, MuseumWeek, Superintendência de Museus of SECEC-RJ and FUNARJ, Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Biblioteca Mário de Andrade, Acervo Artístico da UFMG, Museu Light da Energia, and the Centro Cultural do Ministério da Saúde.
The process usually took place over a video call. At the meeting, we talked about CC licenses and their use among GLAMs. We also answered many questions, the four most frequently asked: “1) How do I use a CC license?”, “2) How do I apply CC licenses on the institution’s website?”, “3) How to deal with the copyright of works that are not in the public domain?” and, finally, “4) How can we use CC licenses for the collection to reach a wider audience?”. This last issue was the major concern, due to COVID-19.
On more formal occasions, the meeting took the form of a presentation. Mariana explained copyright and CC, Juliana licenses and Open GLAM, and Giovanna focused on their practical application in Wikimedia projects. In this format, the four most frequent questions were answered.
Among the examples, an interesting case was the meeting with the Superintendência de Museus. At this meeting, we organized a presentation with more than 70 guests from different museums in Rio de Janeiro and presented on the public domain, CC, and Wikimedia, answered participants’ questions, and replied to some queries, such as the case of orphan works.
We also spoke with the Centro Cultural do Ministério da Saúde to help with attribution and licensing during the design of a Syphilis exhibit to help raise awareness of STDs. The exhibition opened months later, at the Imperial Palace of Rio de Janeiro.
The approach we used by email was important to establish a relationship between CCBR and some GLAM institutions independently. The initiative helped the chapter to establish itself, strengthened its Open GLAM coordination, and make contact with potential partners.
As an example, the work of the Open GLAM coordination went beyond heritage institutions and reached educational organizations. CCBR was asked to give lectures and presentations, and eventually to help students. One interesting case was the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), which turned to CCBR to help its law students understand open access and GLAM policies in a project with the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), one of the most popular and important in the country. Or even, our participation in the 18th Week of Library and Information Science, at the University of Sao Paulo (USP).
Another important initiative was the partnership with Goethe Institut to participate in the Abre-te Código, a Coding da Vinci hackathon. At the event, we organized an orientation meeting to provide the basis for the event’s Legislation cycle, precisely for representatives of important Brazilian GLAMs: Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, Fundação Bienal, Itaú Cultural, and the Museu do Ipiranga. During the hackathon, we also produced a live presentation and video, as well as a brochure with answers to frequently asked questions, based on the orientation meetings.
When comparing the email campaign and the catalytic event Abre-te Código, we see two different types of engagement, which complement each other. The first created independence for CCBR and helped to strengthen the chapter’s name, but it was a long process and demanded a lot from a completely volunteer-based organization. The second generated important audiovisual resources still in use and managed to attract more institutions at once, but it did not generate continuous engagement for the chapter.
Proposed solutions and recommendations
Through activities in 2020 and 2021, we understand that for CCBR’s message and mission to reach more heritage institutions, it’s necessary that the chapter as a whole, but especially the Open GLAM coordination, use more institutional means and appropriate methods to carry out external contacts. It’s also crucial to develop a partnership model and a clear and objective resource with the Open GLAM guidelines, suggestions on how to put a collection opening plan into action, and the use of CC licenses in GLAMs.
Regarding the first point, mainly due to the emails sent in early 2020, we believe that one of the main problems was the fact that, although we used the “ccbrglam” email, the address was from a generic account. At the time, CCBR’s website was not completely built along the lines of other CC chapters. The combination of both factors could give the group an impression of informality.
The second problem, the lack of a partnership model, is an issue that new and small organizations face. Even more so for a non-profit organization of a volunteer nature, such as CCBR. Increasing the number of participants and improving the chapter’s coordinations, such as Open GLAM, can help in this regard. The ideal would be to develop a model like the one used, for example, by Wikimedia Deutschland in data partnerships.
Finally, despite the content produced during Abre-te Código, the lack of a complete resource on Open GLAM in Portuguese is an important issue. Currently, there are some academic publications from Tainacan and Wiki Movimento Brasil with a Wikimedia focus. There’s also the “Copyright manual for museums, archives and libraries”, by Mariana Valente and Bruna Castanheira de Freitas, which has an introductory chapter on Open GLAM. However, a complex and official publication on the subject, probably in brochure format, coming from CCBR, is still needed to spread and solidify the ideas of Open GLAM in Brazil.
Implementation
We believe the implementation of those recommendations and suggestions is feasible, but it mainly depends on two aspects. First, the acceptance of some open funding requests made by CCBR in recent months. This is important because it is necessary to have resources for the production and circulation of brochures, like the one about Open GLAM.
Secondly, it’s also necessary for CCBR to strengthen and increase the involvement of interested parties, in order to encourage volunteers who want to get involved in the chapter’s coordinations. This aspect is extremely important for the health and continuity of CCBR as an organization. In this regard, the group has been analyzing activities that can engage people more regularly, such as the production of recurring newsletters, inspired by CC Uruguay, and the organization of training activities aimed at Brazilian educational institutions, since the link between CCBR and some higher education courses has aroused interest, mainly in the interface between research, university, and heritage, as in the mentioned cases of FGV, MASP, and USP.
Finally, it’s important to highlight how the recommendations shared here can be widely adopted by other CC chapters in the Global South, especially in Latin America, particularly in countries interested in developing GLAM initiatives, but don’t know how to start. The state of heritage institutions is similar over the continent. The organizational logic, the structural problems, and potentially the institutions’ doubts can be similar. A LATAM study, even a comparative one, could analyze such conditions and is extremely necessary.
Conclusion
This case study carried out by the CCBR is an analysis of initiatives to contact GLAM institutions in Brazil, which took place at a time of great uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the informality of the endeavor, the group’s will and need to resort to more formal and permanent postures for the establishment and support of a Brazilian Open GLAM community is clear.
Both the email and the Abre-te Código initiatives were attempts to help develop the Open GLAM community and awareness. However, the scarcity of Open GLAM materials in Portuguese, as well as the lack of time, resources, and volunteers within CCBR for these initiatives to take hold, made it difficult to carry out the process in a satisfactory manner. On the other hand, the endeavors were important for CCBR to understand these difficulties, the mindset and complex realities of Brazilian GLAMs, as well as to present at events and, especially through the email campaign, just be present.
From the case study, it became clearer that CCBR’s objective is to find ways to help more GLAMs to use CC licenses and open their collections. For this, CCBR hopes to attract more volunteers, produce the Open GLAM materials in Portuguese, and develop a better connection with the community, developing it both internally and externally, with LATAM fellows and the global community.
This Open GLAM case study is part of an open call for case studies on open access in cultural institutions funded by Creative Commons. More information is available here:
1 — Eight open GLAM case studies selected: discover the successful projects and their leaders! (Creative Commons)
2 — Open Call for Open Glam Case Studies (Creative Commons)
