Step by Step: Ways Towards Open Access

Karin Glasemann, Digital Coordinator, Nationalmuseum Sweden
Antje Theise, Rare Book Librarian, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg

The workshop focusses on:

–          How to reach a decision in favor of Open Access.

When the Nationalmuseum started publishing its collections on Europeana, it did so with a restricted license. What happened, which discussions were necessary to change that policy? What can you learn from our experience?

–          How do you start being open without a lot of money?

An argument brought up mostly against changing access policies is the high upfront costs for changing infrastructure and presentation of data. We will show how you team up with powerful collaborators like Europeana and Wikimedia/Wikidata in order to open up your material and to boost the internal development

–          Benefits of Open Access

Even small steps can return great results! Our pilot has been proven right by the extremely positive feedback, but also by a lot of innovative engagement with our collections without us being able to invest a lot of time in these activities.

We will give input through our experiences but want to discuss all challenges employees can face when trying to change their institutions policy. We want the participants to go home not only with a set of arguments for promoting open access in their home institution, but with a clear picture of where and with what kind of pilot they could start right after the conference.