The Future of Openness
“Should we open our collections digitally to the public?”. The question is rapidly going the way of “Should we have an online presence?” — you may have opinions and you may have feelings, but you really have no meaningful say in the matter.
On a winter day, German artists Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles walked brazenly into Berlin’s Neues Museum and (probably) covertly scanned the head of long-dead Egyptian queen Nefertiti. They did so without permission and to the distinct dismay of the museum.
Less dramatically, but no less significantly, major US foundations have recently made “open access either a requirement for grant recipients or a factor in assessing potential grantees.” (Kapsalis, 2016). In other words: “We’ll support you, but only if it benefits the broader public”.
In related news: Important works of classical art have, from the early days of the web, been shared online. Or as Joris Pekel of Europeana puts it: “If a painting has any relevance, you can probably find a digital copy of it on the internet”. This copy may be inferior, not color-corrected and hopelessly unrepresentative of its magnificent source material but this hardly keeps the general Googling public up at night.
And what does this tell us? That openness is not, and technically hasn’t been for a while, an option. If an object is A) Visible to the public and B) Interesting it will end up online (in some form) no matter what obstacles are put in place. And projects embracing openness are likely to reach far more people and thus attract more funding.
This may seem scary at first. But what are the actual downsides to openness (even in its radical, semi-anarchistic form)? At a glance, there are a few potential arguments for keeping things locked up.
Traditionally, some have feared that guests who can view museum objects from the comfort of their couch would stay away from the real (if you will) thing. But no museums with an open collections approach have reported this effect. If anything online access tends to stimulate interest and awareness.
What, then, about income from image sales — won’t they disappear if things are freely available? They might — although income may be generated in other ways — but this economy has been shown to be fairly fictitious for many institutions if transaction costs are taken into consideration.
A less profane worry is that, echoing Walter Benjamin’s famous essay, of “aura”, the alleged threat to the uniqueness of art works in the age of rampant digital reproduction. But again, nothing in the real world seems to indicate that interest in the original works are lessened by their digital availability (or indeed their availability on mugs, keychains, and doormats) and even if that were the case, withholding high-quality reproductions only serves to pave the way for, you know, low-quality reproductions as per the “yellow milk-maid syndrome”.
Are there, then, no legitimate arguments for “closed collections”? Of course there are, but in my opinion they tend to be of a highly practical nature. Making collections available online requires resources and these resources will often — though not always — deter from other lofty goals. And they will usually require a certain level of infrastructure that some institutions find daunting. Finally, openness may sometimes be at odds with strategic goals and business models in which case the arguments for open access may fall on stony ground. Now, I absolutely don’t believe that “closed” will lead inevitably to instant collapse from obscurity but I do believe that the comparative advantages of “closed” are very small and that the pressure to open up will only increase in the years to come.
And so, the future of openness looks bright. Challenges — both legal, organizational, and financial — are substantial and mistakes will be made. But the wise will survey the rapidly changing landscape and arrange themselves optimally. Personally, I can’t wait.
See also:
- ABN Amro (2014). Going digital can help museums boost profile and income.
- New York Times (11 March 2016). Museums Embrace Digital Offerings as Visitor Numbers Surge.
- Sanderhoff, Merete (ed.) (2014). Sharing is Caring: Openness and sharing in the cultural heritage sector.
- Website of SMK’s Mix it Up! exhibition.
SMK Open: A four-year effort to make the National Gallery of Denmark’s art collection freely available to everyone — for any purpose, ranging from fun to serious production. With generous support from Nordea-fonden.
