Building Open GLAM Community for Sustainable Open Licensing Practices in Nigeria

Building Open GLAM Community for Sustainable Open Licensing Practices in Nigeria

• Overview
• Timeline and Activities
• Partnership and Implementation team
• Participants
• Suggested Articles/Items/Images to create or improve
• Report

In Nigeria, knowledge of open practices in GLAMs

Building Open GLAM community in Nigeria

which is characterized by sharing, distribution, and access to works in the public domain is relatively new and low, with many institutions remaining physical spaces, which has also hampered the Creative Commons Nigeria Affiliate's goals of promoting CC licensing and models. According to Okoro (2016), the situation is compounded by the prevalence of scepticism about CC, particularly in the publishing industry. This attitude is built on a false notion that CC is detrimental to their interest as they equate CC and OERs to loss of revenue.

In other findings carried out by Oluruntimilehin (2020), he discovered that the greatest challenge to promoting free and open access to digital cultural heritage in Nigeria is a lack of awareness as many cultural institutions in Nigeria are unaware of open practices in promoting access and reuse. For those who are aware but undecided, it still demands a great deal of advocacy to convince them to give their first steps.

Other challenges include bureaucratic bottlenecks in setting up open practices at some cultural institutions, securing funding for large-scale digitization projects at GLAMs that are willing to share their works under open licenses, and the relative scarcity of modern equipment for undertaking digitization.

In October 2021 the Creative Commons launched a call for case studies on open access in cultural institutions in marginalized and underrepresented non-western institutions. Findings from Nigeria revealed that knowledge of open practices in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs)is relatively low in Nigeria.

Chuma-Okoro and Ogbeidi (2021) in their interviews with GLAM staff in CRIMMD, the National Library of Nigeria, the Confucius Institute, the University of Lagos Library, the Badagry Heritage Museum, and the National Gallery of Art Lagos also found low awareness of open GLAM and free access to knowledge as well as the near-absence of an online repository for free re-use of language audio and audio-visual works, a dearth of digital platforms to facilitate open access; especially for works that are in the public domain, lack of funding for robust internet infrastructure to support wide-reaching open access services, legal constraints, and technical support.

Ikem (2022) also used the Badagry Heritage museum as a case study and noted that the absence of vibrancy and lack of optimism by managers of these cultural heritage sites has prevented policies and practices of open GLAM from taking root and shaping knowledge and new voices. The challenges for GLAMs in Nigeria are all-encompassing, from copyright issues to funding for digitization to enable access, lack of awareness or knowledge about the concept of Open GLAM, its benefits of digital open access, absence of an open access policy, open access principles and organisations such as Wikimedia and Creative Commons as legal tools for promoting open knowledge.

Oluruntimilehin (2022) further disclosed that some of the challenges that exist in adopting open access practices in Nigerian libraries include a lack of awareness about open access, open licensing, and best practices of knowledge dissemination. This explains the non-existence of open access policies for many Nigerian libraries, education, and cultural heritage institutions.

Based on all these findings provided, it is clear that there is a lack of awareness and understanding about open practices in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs) in Nigeria, most especially as it has to do with the open licensing of collections in these institutions.

Hence, this proposal is focused on building a community of GLAMs for open licensing in Nigeria through advocacy/awareness campaigns and capacity building. The goal of this project is to promote open access and open licensing of GLAM collections in Nigeria using Creative Commons licenses. The expected outcomes are to increase awareness and understanding of open practices among GLAMs professionals, increased adoption of open access policies and practices among GLAMs institutions, increased digitization of GLAM collections and increased online visibility and accessibility of GLAM collections through the use of appropriate CC platforms, tools and licenses.

In addition, this project will promote the proposed Copyright Act 2021 in Nigeria, which could provide a legal framework for open practices in GLAMs institutions. Overall, the project would contribute to building a community of GLAMs for open licensing in Nigeria and promoting access to and reuse of cultural heritage materials and library collections for the benefit of all.

To achieve these goals and outcomes, the project activities will include;

• Online advocacy using E-posters on social media platforms to push Open GLAM and the use of CC tools and licensing into the policy agenda of GLAMs institutions, and create awareness among GLAM professionals in Nigeria.
• Establishment of a Network of Open GLAM advocates in Nigeria" to help push for openness in GLAM institutions in Nigeria.

This will involve the recruitment of GLAM professionals interested in open access to GLAM collections and open knowledge in general.

• 1 roundtable discussion with 30 heads of GLAM institutions, policymakers, managers, and representatives of GLAM institutions and associations in Nigeria to identify the challenges and way forward for promoting and increasing their engagement in open GLAM practices and creating a road map to more meaningful engagement in the CC open culture platforms. At the end of the roundtable discussion, a report on "Open

GLAM Practices Nigeria: The Way Forward" will be published.

This will further help us eliminate the barriers to open GLAM practices and better help participants identify and understand the intersection between GLAM institutions, Open GLAM practices, and the Creative Commons whilst creating an open learning community.

• 2-in-person and 2-online workshops/training for 30 selected GLAM professionals on open practices and how to leverage existing open platforms to promote open knowledge as well as open up their collections for the public good. This will also include, training on the use of appropriate CC licenses and attributions to increase the online visibility of GLAM collections online as well as training on how to use some of

the platforms that work with the Creative Commons platform to provide GLAM professionals and their users with different options of licensing their works with CC licenses e.g. Wikipedia, WikiCommons, skill commons, among others.

This workshop will involve GLAM professionals from the Nigerian Library Association (NLA), the Society of Nigerian Archivists (SNA) and the Nigerian National Museum Society (NNMS). The workshop will also involve practical training on the use of Wikidata to promote linked open data among GLAM institutions in Nigeria.