AvoinGLAM/AvoinGLAM charter 2023

TO BE APPROVED BY THE STEERING GROUP 2/23

This document is revised annually in the beginning of the fiscal year and published in avoinglam.fi and AvoinGLAM Meta.

1. Mission

Capacity building for digital transformation: We support advocates of open cultural heritage and GLAM practitioners in understanding and taking advantage of the open digital technologies and collaborative activities.
Local and global GLAM communities: We facilitate an active GLAM community in Finland through our activities and contribute to a global peer network of GLAM practitioners.
Advocacy for Open Access to cultural heritage: We conduct advocacy for Open Access to cultural heritage among cultural heritage practitioners, GLAM institutions, and in public policy. We contribute to developing shared best practices for opening up cultural heritage while protecting vulnerable heritage from being exploited.
Co-creation: We promote the release, discovery, reuse and enriching of open cultural materials though practical projects, campaigns, and events, and focus on experimentation, innovation, and creative participation across domains.
Global diversity, equity and inclusion in cultural heritage: We work within a global community of Open GLAM practitioners. We design our output for adoption in a multilingual and multicultural environment. We emphasize cultural and linguistic diversity by focusing on efforts supporting underresourced cultures and languages, local and intangible heritage, and initiatives regarding heritage at risk.

2. Vision

We believe that cultural heritage belongs to all. With this in mind, we have transformed the meaning of the acronym GLAM from the institutional Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums into Global Languages, Art & Memory.

We focus on efforts supporting different modalities, underresourced cultures and languages, local and intangible heritage, and initiatives regarding heritage at risk. In sharing information that is more private, belongs to smaller communities or that is contested, we must ensure safe and ethical sharing practices.

In Finland as well as globally, we try to bring together a community of changemakers to experiment, play and to learn from one another. Together we can explore the role of opening and sharing cultural heritage as a facet of change towards an equitable future.

3. Governance

AvoinGLAM has been a working group within Open Knowledge Finland since 2012.

3.1 Legal status

AvoinGLAM is not a registered entity. It has been a working group at Open Knowledge Finland since 2012.
AvoinGLAM is registered as an auxiliary organization name for OKFI.
AvoinGLAM has received community funding from the Wikimedia Foundation since 2022 with Open Knowledge Finland as a fiscal sponsor.
Whenever possible, AvoinGLAM will sign petitions or agreements itself, but in cases when it is not legally possible, this is carried out by the OpenKnowledge Finland Board.
AvoinGLAM has set up a steering group to function as an internal decision-making body. However, any legal decisions are submitted to the Open Knowledge Finland Board.

3.2 Steering group

AvoinGLAM’s daily activities and programmatic decisions are carried out by a steering group.

In 2023 the core group will be slightly formalized to be called the steering group and to have designated members.
The group members are listed on the AvoinGLAM page on Wikimedia Meta.
An individual or a representative of an organization may ask to join the steering group. AvoinGLAM may refuse the request of individuals in conflict with the Wikimedia Universal Code of Conduct, UCoC.

3.3 Contact person

The contact person for AvoinGLAM is selected among the steering group, unless a manager is hired for the role. In both cases, the person participates in the workings of the steering group.

In 2023 Susanna Ånäs acts as the contact person and project manager for AvoinGLAM’s activities.
The contact person reports to the Open Knowledge Finland Board.

3.4 Membership

Participating in the workings of AvoinGLAM is free for anyone and does not require formal membership. All meetings are open for anyone to participate under the Universal Code of Conduct. Individuals and organizations may join Open Knowledge Finland as members.

4. Working methods

We aim to create a continuous flow of different working methods that feed and complement each other:

Surface emerging topics: Case study Research
Bring together like-minded actors to explore ideas: Workshop Experiment Retreat
Ignite discussion: Writing Discussion Webinar
Influence policies: Advocacy
Plan and complete projects together: Collaboration
Document and share, build capacity: Training Resource
Influence public opinion: Publicity
Engage new creators and inspire new ideas: Community Meetup
Maintain long-term projects and create campaigns as platforms for collaboration: Project Campaign

5. Code of Conduct

Civility and mutual respect are fundamental to ensuring a supportive and safe environment without threat of prejudice or harassment in all our activities and the workplace. This is especially important as we work with underrepresented communities.

We will

Make the Wikimedia Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and the Friendly Space Policy known in all digital and physical spaces we use.
Train the community in identifying, addressing and mitigating the harms of harassment.
Encourage participants in our activities to call out violations and make available a reporting protocol.
Agree on enforcement policies for protecting the community and its members against harassment. A person continuing to violate the UCoC/FSP will be asked to leave, and permanently banned from participating after three such occasions.
Any organization we work with must adhere to UCoC/FSP, and events we present in must have a Code of Conduct in place.
Any incidents breaking the law will be immediately reported to local law enforcement.

6. Shared online spaces and communications

Avoinglam.fi is the bilingual website & blog (fi/en). News will be posted there and copied to Facebook and Twitter. They will be collated into periodic newsletters.
AvoinGLAM Facebook group is the main communication channel for the Finnish community. The language can be Finnish, English, or another language, if necessary.
AvoinGLAM and Hack4OpenGLAM Twitter accounts are used for international promotion. The language is English.
The newsletter
AvoinGLAM page in Wikimedia Meta records all official information and documentation.
The files are stored in Google Workspace at OKFI.
We will encourage joining any international forae, such as the GLAM-Wiki Global Telegram and Facebook groups, the Open GLAM Slack and mailing list at Creative Commons, and any upcoming ones.
Email address avoinglam@okf.fi is the primary contact address.
We will publish our efforts through the This Month in GLAM, Open GLAM and Creative Commons Medium publications internationally, and promote them using the social media channels.
Open Knowledge Finland provides support for communications in social media and via the OKFI newsletter.