Open GLAM Indonesia: how collaboration, cultural policy reform and museum engagement is driving the growth of open access
Indonesia’s GLAM landscape
GLAM institutions in Indonesia have a complex history. The museum sector was established in the capital city of every province in the 1970s under the Suharto presidency, known as the New Order era.¹ The goal of the new museums was to cultivate national culture, in line with the state’s agenda. Museums were intended to promote nationalistic values and to preserve indigenous culture by collecting and exhibiting ethnic objects, or by share narratives from the war of independence.
The state positioned itself as the sole source of authorized knowledge and discourse. Unfortunately, the exhibitions that followed this premise ended up as stagnant narratives in the museum sector for decades, a situation compounded by the absence of cultural policies in the following era, Reformasi.² A large number of museums suffered poor management and insufficient funding which prevented them from improving. GLAM institutions were considered to have failed to articulate the complex diversity of Indonesia and contemporary cultural expressions.
Although certain problems persisted in state-owned GLAM institutions during the Reformasi, this period brought changes to the art and cultural scene, by growing creative spaces, festivals and cultural markets. This was accompanied by transformation in civil society, by safeguarding citizens’ rights to freedom of expression and the right to assemble. Subsequent public initiatives shaped cultural institutions to be more fluid, vibrant, independent and to better respond to the socio-political situation in their local context.
In 2017, the Indonesian government took a crucial step for open access to digitized cultural heritage by implementing Law No.5/2017 on Cultural Advancement. This law set out provisions regarding strategic measures to cultural advancement through protection, development, utilization and guidance for the cultural heritage sector. It has a specific section on cultural data that plans to establish an integrated system accessible for everyone (Article 15). A year later, local governments with communities initially collected cultural data by conducting an assessment identifying cultural practitioners, facilities and other cultural assets on state or provincial level. These assessments, which gathered evidence-based case studies of data practice, informed the development of the Cultural Strategy in 2018.
As an ultimate goal, the central government plans to release a web portal of cultural data that will integrate data currently scattered among culture-associated stakeholders. This phase of consolidation is actually the biggest challenge, to unify data which supposedly has its own information system or even does not have it all. Currently, the data on tangible and intangible cultural heritage are considered more comprehensive than the data on cultural practitioners, institutions and infrastructures. Another task that has to be done is to ensure that people can access it freely and openly, as it is stipulated in law.
However, the state of open access in GLAM institutions in Indonesia remains tied to two important elements: the digital infrastructure that they have available, and the institution’s attitude. Digital infrastructure is a monetary investment on online presence, while the institution’s attitude requires an institutional change to be more collaborative and support new forms of creation and participation. Part of the complex legacy that the GLAM sector faces in Southeast Asia, where many countries still face censorship and human rights violations, is that all these affect culture as a public good. How can an open movement be fostered if cultural institutions themselves lack accountable and supportive systems? Small and community-based institutions and projects such as Wikimedia can help, but they can’t replace the function of preserving, archiving, and holding the legacy of national culture from the often state-owned GLAM institutions.
How Wikimedia helps reshape the role of GLAM institutions
The change brought by the government’s Cultural Advancement Law coincided with the action of Wikimedia Indonesia, to start considering the GLAM sector as an important area of work. This gave rise to the project “GLAM Indonesia” (later called ‘GLAM-ID’) in 2017. The main program of GLAM-ID is the digitization of museum collections that can be freely licensed and uploaded on Wikimedia Commons and used across other Wiki-projects, such as Wikisource. The first project was the “Content Digitization” program, that started with the digitization of a series of Indonesia Encyclopedia for Wikipedia Bahasa Indonesia. GLAM-ID then made mid-term partnerships with the Museum Dewantara Kirti Griya (later called ‘Kirti Griya’) and the Minangkabau Culture Documentation and Information Center (later called ‘PDIKM’).
How does the program ‘Content Digitization’ by GLAM-ID work? How does this program help push open access principles by using Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons tools? For a closer look, this article explores the way in which GLAM-ID engaged with Museum Dewantara Kirti Griya and PDIKM.
“GLAM-ID doesn’t have a specific criteria to select the museums we collaborate with, but we try to prioritize collections that are in the public domain according to Indonesia’s copyright law. We normally make the first move, contacting and explaining to the institution what is the mission of open knowledge, how it relates to them, and we offer support to understand what ‘open’ means. If successful, we continue to arrange an agreement where both parties are committed to work on each phase of the activities, from selecting the collection to cataloging metadata,” explained Rachmat Wahidi, Manager of Internal Affairs and Partnership at Wikimedia Indonesia.
The first activity took place in 2015, when a Wikipedia contributor visited Kirti Griya and invited the museum to upload part of their collection to Wikimedia Commons. As a result of the event, 100 digitized scripts were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Indonesia’s digital library. Based on this experience, GLAM-ID decided to expand the program in 2017 to include other collections and new collaborators. Together with Kirti Griya they selected manuscripts written in Java, Malay and Dutch. For the Dutch texts, GLAM-ID invited Wikimedia Netherlands to transcribe the files, resulting in around 970-s transcribed pages being now available on Wikisource.
The collaborations took place around 2–3 years with the number of digitized collections added gradually. 75 Java manuscripts and 847 archives have been uploaded, e.g. the letters and speeches by Ki Hadjar Dewantara, the notes on the establishment of Taman Siswa and the articles of Association of the Keimin Bunka Shidōsho.³ Other uploads are 399 press in West Sumatra that circulated in the early of 20th century, such as Bintang Timoer magazine, Aboean Goeroe-Goeroe magazine, Hoa Po newspaper and Soeara Kemadjoean Kota Gedang.⁴ All of this is freely accessible, including the metadata.
But even with that mindset, not everything goes smoothly. Sometimes institutions take a significant amount of time to sign off the agreements, and the Wikimedia volunteers have to be patient. “For the PDKIM, the partnership process took about two years. Once it was signed, everything went quicker. The museum staff picked the collections out for us and a squad of volunteers handled the digitization,” described Adhmi Fauzan as one of the volunteers.
Advocacy in disguise
Kirti Griya and PDIKM are aware that their collections need to be digitized. Among the invaluable collections these museums have are the epics and other classical Javanese literature (‘babad’ and ‘serat’), and a collection composed by West Sumatra press and magazines about the Minangkabau culture. These museums have limited staff to work on preservation and digitization activities. This is a common issue across museums in Indonesia, where it is hard to see different areas of expertise being covered by professionals related to those areas. At Kirti Griya, for example, some activities such as preservation and education programs are handled by only two people.
“The purpose of digitizing the collection is not limited to making a copy for preservation, but today it is also about public access and communication. I understand that there is a demand for museums to deliver different services by using technology. This investment is sometimes very costly and some institutions can’t face it,” told Kirti Griya’s staff, Agus Purwadi.
GLAM-ID’s staff, Hardiansyah admitted, “One problem we face is the need to build digital skills among museum staff. For digitizing and uploading the content, we asked Wikipedia volunteers from the region to help the institution. It would be good to organize more training activities as part of the GLAM-ID program.”
Both institutions were doing some digitization, but it was mainly for keeping internal records, without necessarily considering access as part of that workflow. The cooperation with GLAM-ID made access an important consideration.
Kirti Griya or PDIKM are doing marketing and promotion to the public regularly. Both focused on several offline events, cooperating with local tours and managing events or festivals. In addition, GLAM-ID informs what museum collections that are already free licensed on their Twitter. So far, GLAM-ID has organized activities in four regions, such as in West Sumatra, Yogyakarta, West Java and Central Java.
While the government’s portal covering integrated cultural data is at the phase of consolidation, it is still essential to increase people’s awareness about free licenses. GLAM-ID could share the experiences they have obtained that are not limited to Kirti Griya and PDIKM, but also with Horison magazine, Sastra Lestari Foundation and Ajip Rosidi Library.
GLAM-ID is proactive in engaging and persuading local museums to join the open movement by offering them a platform to put their digitized content and offering support to keep on working on these digitization programs. They introduce museums the supporting infrastructures of “open” (Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons tools and licenses).
For some institutions, enduring such predicament without any practical outcomes can be hard. That’s why the approach of GLAM-ID’s program is interesting: they are trying to make materials available on Wikimedia platforms to demonstrate the impact of open. They believe that Wikimedia’s mission on open knowledge is an appropriate way to promote the art and culture of Indonesia to global audiences.
One could define advocacy as the action of proposing and helping to realize changes in governance. With the release of certain collections on open access terms, and the outcome of knowledge transfer to the public sector, I would gently affirm that GLAM-ID fits this definition of advocacy. It has already given useful method and insight in the open access practice to Kirti Griya and PDIKM. Amidst the dilemma of the GLAM institutions, the partnership offered practical tools of digital infrastructure, accomplished the principle of open that is meanwhile being set up by the government.
“All the resources were provided by GLAM-ID. We also learned about Creative Commons licenses and copyright from them,” added Sri Muryani as the Director of Kirti Griya, when describing the collaboration between 2015–2018. Medi Rosdian, Deputy of Tourism at the Padang Panjang Regency Government for the Youth, Sport and Tourism, West Sumatra, had a similar experience. “For us, this had a great impact. The results were visible, because we could access it online and they are on a global platform. If I search the keyword, ‘Padang Panjang’ in Wikipedia Bahasa Indonesia, we are at the top of the list with information about our collection. This indeed has an impact on the visitor’s traffic.”
Linking, fast and slow
Some of the most visited works include a response letter from an employee at the Ministry of the Colonies to Ki Hadjar and a bundle edition of the Aboean Goeroe-Goeroe between January-May 1928. Somehow, this attention could not be compared to the amount of the PDIKM’s visitors that could reach around hundreds of thousands per year.
“Once I presented this kind of initiative to a museum in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, and they didn’t show as much interest as I’d expected. They are concerned that being online would lower the visitors if the collections were fully accessible. This mindset is still broadly found in Indonesian museums, and it’s hard to explain the benefits of open access,” hinted other GLAM-ID’s volunteers, Zhilal Dharma about the obstacle. Let’s argue this by speculating such possibilities: some of the visitors who accessed the open collection on Wikimedia Commons utilized it for research, and it was used by people from different backgrounds. Open access makes the collections more findable and makes their value grow.
Wikimedia Commons allows museums who can’t invest much on digital infrastructure to put their collections online. On Wikimedia Commons, their collections are not only accessible, but they also appear on one of the largest free-licensed repositories in the world. But in the bigger picture, it is still difficult to access data about culture in Indonesia online. We don’t have a portal that aggregates the different digitized archives and collections, so the only way to find information about each collection is by manually visiting the website of each institution. There are some initiatives by private institutions who are trying to build centralized platforms to access music and art archives easily, like Irama Nusantara and Indonesian Visual Art Archives and the culture database at Sobat Budaya. The National Library of Indonesia has also been showing some progress on its information system, but in general the data is still scattered throughout the GLAM institutions, and not being made available as open access.
Both the institutions and the communities benefit from the knowledge and practice of open access. For example, I personally favor the open collections for my research. For instance, I’ve used the photograph series of ethnographic objects taken during colonial times in Indonesia by Tropenmuseum, as well as the public domain artwork Desmos dasymaschalus by Raden Saleh at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center. These are some simple examples on how a community person like me, coming from a country with a colonial history, has the opportunity to access and re-use some museum collections related to our colonial-modern history. I’m sure other people also utilize Indonesia cultural assets by finding that there are no restrictions to use them. As Surya Selfika, also a GLAM ID’s volunteer said, “People are more comfortable if they are able to read the manuscript immediately without being required to register.”
Meet the challenge, grasp the opportunity
The case studies of Kirti Griya and PDIKM reveal to us the endeavor of bringing open access to GLAM institutions in Indonesia. The Wikimedia projects, and Creative Commons licenses and tools, provide good methods for institutions to achieve some level of open access. The interventions by GLAM-ID have successfully made openly available thousands of collections that have historical and cultural values.
The institution’s attitude also matters. How sustainable is open access in these institutions? How do other GLAM institutions perceive this movement? The sustainability of open access really depends on the institution’s strategy in the future.
An open access-literate GLAM institution is of crucial importance. Open access highlights accessibility, improves the information workflow at the institution, improves the management of the collection and allows for the data to be easily searched and manipulated. The institution improves its data significantly and this sets them up better for doing cultural data integration in the upcoming portal that the government is planning as part of the Cultural Advancement Law, since they will already have metadata attached to their collections. Most important of all, open access allows democratization of information, with the institution mindfully providing cultural heritage material to connect people and enrich research and teaching. This allows for people to use it in more ways.
The steps that GLAM-ID has been taking help make a good case for open GLAM in Indonesia. This is a good start to amplify the movement.
¹ The regime, which lasted 32 years (1966–1998), identified as an authoritative government, where it led to high involvement for military, bureaucratization and economic development.
² A movement to dethrone the New Order (May 1998) and a period of the Indonesia history which characterized a pro-democratic of political and social environment.
³ Respectively are a leading figure in education as well as an independence activist, a school for ordinary people founded by Dewantara during Dutch colonialism and a cultural organization established by Japan colonial government.
⁴ Since the end of 19th century West Sumatra had been experienced the development of the local press⎯written in Malay language⎯due to the introduction of printing technology by the Dutch. West Sumatra itself gave birth to anti-colonial movements and many cultural and nationalist figures who played important role for Indonesian independence and the formation of a nationality spirit.
Acknowledgment to the interviewees:
Mr. Rachmat Wahidi & Mr. Hardiansyah; Ms. Sri Muryani & Mr. Agus Purwanto; Mr. Medi Rosdian; and Mr. Zhilal Darma, Mr. Surya Selfika & Mr. Adhmi Fauzan.
References:
Alia Swastika, “Towards Self-Organization as New-Institutionalism in Southeast-Asia” in Active Withdrawals: Life and Death of Institutional Critique”, Nikita Yingqian Cai and Biljana Ciric (ed.) (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2016).
Jakarta Post, “Most Indonesian Museums Non-Operational: Official” on Jakarta Post, https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/08/21/most-ri-museums-non-operational-official.html (published on August 21, 2017).
Goethe-Institut Indonesien, Data Budaya Terbuka di Indonesia, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKlsw4hfJgk&t=1643s (streamed on June 19, 2020).
Pemajuan Kebudayaan, http://pemajuankebudayaan.id/undang-undang/.
Sahabat Seni Nusantara, Apa Kabar Arsip Seni?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro861z4p-NY (streamed on July 14, 2020).
Tod Jones, Indonesian Cultural Policy, 1950–2003: Culture, Institutions, Government (dissertation) (Perth: Curtin University of Technology, Faculty of Media, Society and Culture, 2005).
About this story
This story was written thanks to an open call funded by Creative Commons Open GLAM Platform. This is part of a series of articles that will be published in the Open GLAM Medium publication, that have been supported with the goal of showcasing stories around the world on Open GLAM. Find out more here.
