GLAM School/Interviews/Alaafiabami Oladipupo, Isaac Oloruntimilehin and Olubusola Afolabi (Free Knowledge Africa)
How did you, at Free Knowledge Africa, evolve into the situation where you now have GLAM practices in place?
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
The first thing I’ll say is interest. You have to be interested in GLAM and to see the value in that is undocumented and that is missing. You also have to have a huge vision. I remember when we started and I joined Hack4OpenGLAM and I shared my ideas with Isaac. He saw it in a much bigger space than I in some instances. So I believe the first thing is you have to be interested. Then when you are interested, you have to check the GLAM practices in your immediate environment, and see if there's a gap to fill out with your contributions. In our own instance, we saw that there was practically no strategy for GLAM, and it is a good idea to start something fresh, something with the youth, something that a lot of young Nigerians might be interested in, that they can attach themselves to. So I believe it is about interest. It is about seeing the missing gap and having a vision that can spread for 10 to 15 years.
Olubusola Afolabi
I really didn't know little about GLAM in the beginning, and Isaac introduced me to Free Knowledge Africa, and just as Alaafiabami explained, you have to have interest, you have to understand the knowledge gaps that exist in the communities, and how a lot of resources are out there and people don’t know about them, and to understand that people can have access to them and here GLAM comes in. So when you have interest and you find this gap, look for like minded people to come together, and look for how you are going to fill this gap with the resources you have. This is how I joined and it has been an amazing experience so far.
Isaac Oloruntimilehin
So for me, I would say it's also a matter of interest because I think I picked interest because of the lack of visibility for African cultural works and the difficulty in accessing them digitally. So that was the point from which I came from when I started becoming active in Creative Commons and GLAM-Wiki. So as I said, there are a lot of big gaps in Nigeria. At the same time I started talking to Alaafia about becoming an Open GLAM ambassador for Sub-Saharan Africa for Hack4OpenGLAM, and he also got more interested. Based on these ideas, and as Busola is a professional librarian, we started exchanging ideas of how we can build something in this direction with people like Douglas McCarthy to advise us, and how we can do these things. We started from the idea of the public domain fest because it's a bit difficult to penetrate the system here so we decided to start from something that was already legally open already and make it digital.
What kind of materials would you like to have at hand for your activities?
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
I think what is really really missing and making our process difficult, as this has not been done in this part of the world.
The knowledge we get from Creative Commons, the websites, from the CC meetings attended, from the newsletters, from Hack4OpenGLAM, from the CC Summit last year, like all those different conferences and different YouTube videos and different readings on websites, it has to be translated to Africa and see how this knowledge can work. For instance, I was in a CC PD meeting my group for Creative Commons and we were discussing how museums are trying to re-establish another copyright on works in the public domain, and they were really taking it seriously how with the officer rights organization that they do not have rights to to increase the copyright to extend the copyright on some creative works, and I could not really relate because majority of the institutions are releasing works under CC licenses, or a Creative Commons PD tool. So you have to be translating the knowledge to how it works in your environment, and see what you can do based on the visibility and connections you can make because you have to find individuals with similar interests that can help you reach your goal.
Isaac Oloruntimilehin
It would be cool to have material that not just talks about the library in London or the Smithsonian Museum in the United States, but actually something that talks about the case of an African museum or African library that talks about their concerns, their fears, the lack of trust, the fear that this might just be what the colonialists tried to do by stealing some of our cultural items back them. We want to reach so many things like that digitally.
Something that would easily fit the context, that is easily helpful, not something that we try out and do not get the same result because of the difference in the legal, cultural, and political context, something that really addresses the context, something like that would be really helpful, and I appreciate this.
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
It’s still part of our long term plans that in the future we wish to extend what we are doing beyond Nigeria. Isaac and I will probably put strategies in place to recruit other Africans that might be interested, we have that covered.
Olubusola Afolabi
Just like Isaac said, that trust issue that Isaac mentioned is key, a lot of people are not aware of this in GLAM institutions, so they find it difficult or have restrictions or certain sentiments in releasing or opening up cultural works or creative works, and the example he gave is that it is a kind of colonialism and trying to steal our works or taking the creative works, so I think if we can find a platform to answer these questions to ensure a kind of confidence to understand what GLAM is all about and not just what it looks like we are taking from them.
What are the needs in GLAMs and cultural heritage regarding opening?
Isaac Oloruntimilehin
We are working on something at the moment as we are doing our first pilots, we documented public domain works in Nigeria. I think we invited you to the webinar in January. As part of the celebration we had a [fest] to do something in Nigeria and Africa. We decided to do documentation of works that are in the public domain. That's our strategy, actually, because we want to build traction, to ensure that there is a trust factor. Important to me is that most of the works that we identified, we saw that we couldn't even find [...] of this work, we don't know which library has it now, we don't know the person who owns the assets now.
So that is our current strategy, and presently we plan to go to the city states in northern Nigeria, in the coming months to have a discussion with some government stakeholders, with the ICT department at the educational ministry and all of that to actually find a way to work on these things but then most of these libraries are poorly funded. Most of them don't have scanners or some of this equipment that can even make all these things easy. Most of them are also not informed. Like people that studied in the 70s 80s 90s, and basically we know how the educational system is. Maybe they have never heard of these things, so telling them for the first time could be very scary. And they don't have the resources to do it unless there’s funding organizations like Wikimedia Foundation supports. And there's also that trust factor to that, they are not just trying to do something funny. So I feel like basically the finance is a big challenge, then the technical knowhow to even try at least how some of these things work. They might not be able to do it in-house, it's a whole lot of work.
The volume is less than 10,000 works in the public domain.
They need capacity for someone to actually bring a better scanner, a modern scanner that can do it faster.
So, I feel like those ideas are for me the major needs. Maybe Alaafia has some as well, but these are the ones I can identify right now, off the top of my head.
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
What Isaac said just resonates with me. I just believe that we just have to build relationships first and let them see that this is genuine. This is not real colonization coming back again and from there, start off. I believe you should make your plans internally, and you should build based on what you are exposed to, what have you, a certain [..] of knowledge that we can do this you can do this you can do this, [..] and build on that step after step, you should move in line with what the organizations that are existing have to offer, not what you think you should do. So I think I think that does it for me.
Olubusola Afolabi
What's one thing I can see is that most of these institutions are actually sitting on certain resources, and don't even know the value of what they are. Because they are poorly funded and these collections have been around for a long while. They have historical value and these institutions, they don't even see the value of it, they don't understand what their worths are and how those materials can help others out it's like a, an orientation to manage all this, so don't understand what's in your collection and value of your collection and how they can open it up to the public to impact audience.
Okay also like to add something. Most of these waves libraries and institutions don't have websites or portals where we can actually even borrow their books, that's the idea in the first place. The works are not easily accessible, you have to actually physically travel, go down there to see some of these works or maybe call the librarian and make inquiries and that could be very tiring, frustrating and time consuming, so most of them don’t have websites. Most of their websites, the ones I’ve come across, require you to sign up or pay a membership fee. Most of them don't have websites, except maybe the university libraries, but they are for the students. I would say that public libraries and museums don’t have websites at all.
[..]
How do you see to approach these specific questions of traditional knowledge or folklore which are then also problematic from the copyright point of view, the traditional culture of Nigeria, how to deal with it in this advocacy for open?
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
The traditional knowledge in Nigeria is in the public domain, Isaac, what do you think, I think it is. It is just about some undocumented languages, all about languages or traditions that do not have the spotlight on them, Isaac, what do you think?
Isaac Oloruntimilehin
I think there's a folklore clause as part of the copyright act. It is a gray area legally. I authored the work with Creative Commons last year for the case studies, and I discovered that you can’t just take an idea like, let's use this cultural group’s type of clothes, and they actually sued the company, I think maybe Disney for using the clothes without permission. So that part is a bit too technical, tricky. And I think this woman, the president of Creative Commons Nigeria was talking about it. Don't want to actually share it, but keep it within the community, maybe it's like that. I think Busola may be able to talk more on that as I am not a lawyer and I'm not a librarian, I just have some personal knowledge of it.
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
Okay, let me make my point then. I think we can, dependent on the volume of knowledge that is accessible about traditional, folklore knowledge, undocumented knowledge about traditions in Nigeria, depending on the knowledge that is available, you should start from there and understand the nitty gritty while you move. I just believe that you should start. While starting you see your restrictions, and you will see what you can do. There are some practices for instance, that are good or not good, some individuals may refer to them as diabolical, but they are our culture. So you have to know what you can do as an individual, or what you can show off to the world and improve on that.
Olubusola Afolabi
Just like what you say, because there are a lot of traditional practices and cultural practices that have actually been shared down but are not open and and only passed within the tradition, from family to family or from generation to generation and we find out it is getting to where these practices become extinct and people no longer know about them. So if we want to start with the ones that are out there, we start with ones that are open, it would give us an idea of how we can reach out to others that are not willing to expose or bring out their culture and some of them can actually think because they are cultural but they are in quotes, like you said, considered barbaric or not acceptable in the society by large, so they try to hide these, and restrict it within their communities or within their customs and traditions. So I feel, starting with the ones we know, the ones that are open and accessible out there, it was an insight of how we can get to those that are not yet ready to come forward.
How do you see the question of decolonization from your perspective?
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
African stories, so I'm relating it to Africa Nigeria Africa stories are Nigerian stories, should be told by Nigerians and Africans, like that should be the basics that we should. There are lots of foreign, which I can't blame for the outbreaks and its expansiokns. If you are not taking charge of the assets you have, other people will come and make use of it so I don't really blame you foreign practitioners. So I believe that firstly to decolonize efficiently, African stories should be told by Africans and Africans themselves should be properly educated about their stories.
Then as you does the artifacts and believe that every artifact that was originally created and was gotten with true or just means should be returned to the countries of origin, like there is no dispute in that you may refer to. One may refer to management that managing these assets might be difficult for the countries of origin. That's why I still like what the British Museum is doing, like they have this channel of communication, back and forth communication talking to for instance the Nigerian government. Like, I knew the governor, those states are actually building a museum for some of the artworks and they are creating a structure for the repatriation of all these works and of all these creative works. So I believe for one, there should be enough communication. I've previously said African stories should be told by Africans and should be documented by us, that now for the rest of the world are free, but the rest of the world should not be the originators of those stories, you get, like, you want to read something about that [..] music in [..] where I am currently. What you would see is a publication in an American University, not even a Nigerian University having a publication about this form of music. It was in a journal, though, no disputes. But let it be so that Nigerians, Africans themselves, should take charge of their heritage, then the major work of decolonization, the burden is on Africans, I believe, I believe it is on Africans. And for repatriation of artifacts things should be done properly, all artifacts, that is my belief, everything should be returned because there is so much economic value from these creative items, Africa is being denied it.
Isaac Oloruntimilehin
I also agree on the part that all should be returned because they were stolen over 200 years ago, and they should just be returned as the way forward. I think there have been discussions and negotiations where I feel it's too long for something that was taken unlawfully to be discussed for so long. And I know of the UK museums having a lot of these works I don't know about other countries, I know they are very guilty of that so I feel there should be more awareness or advocacy about it in the open movement about these works to. It should be right up at what organizations like Creative Commons, Wikimedia Foundation, Open Knowledge Foundation should also do this sort of advocacy again about it and could pressure, maybe as elections are getting near, to have political pressure. Not lobbying, but just say it and see, maybe it can be picked up as a priority. So instead of the needless negotiations having been going on and forth since I think since, I think as I was in secondary or high school they have been discussing these are discussing that so it's taking too long. Maybe Europeana can also be active about it so it could do something about it as well.
Olubusola Afolabi
I think returning these artifacts can build the trust we are talking about, it can build relations between these organizations and institutions, build up trust and the African institutions should be indulged to, or willing to open up their collections.
How do you find learning in an in-person setting versus online in your context?
Isaac Oloruntimilehin
MOOCs are actually good depending on the people we are trying to train. Are you trying to train the librarians or curators, I would say it depends on who you want to reach out to. For someone like me I do a lot of MOOCs, I’m always doing MOOCs on a monthly basis, always learning. I was born in the internet digital revolution, I was born in the midst of it, I am so familiar with all these tools, and maybe to focus [..]. So it depends on who you want to reach out to and how fast you want it to go.
Some people may just go through the MOOC, they might not be able to do it, their attention span may be shorter, especially if it is a very long MOOC. A MOOC on digital cultural heritage might be very difficult to follow through that long and even the most [..] might not finish up. I believe at some point in-person might actually work best, because they would be able to ask questions, share ideas, not just pour information over them but they can also give back, and we are able to find the middle ground for how they can do some of these things. I think web resources would also be useful in case they just want to read something about a particular part of OpenGLAM or opening up. So if they have web resources they can just quickly go to and see what you're looking for and the materials would be indexed or segmented, so that you don't need to read the entire 200 pages of documents. That would also be helpful.
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
I believe various individuals have various interests. But we have to start from somewhere. For GLAM school, discussing, I believe we should start with… There should be websites where this information can be read up easily, it should not be in a form of a book, I believe, creating a book will make the information really difficult to access the way we take this on the web pages on different websites and from there you can improve to videos like I really prefer learning by videos because I can multitask while listening to see if we can expand some videos. For instance, there was a series of videos Creative Commons released about open GLAM, and that really improved my knowledge, and it is even part of the things I shared with Busola and the rest of the team when they joined. We got some new members, and those were the resources I shared. Just watch one after the other. If you don't understand, rewatch anything missing or you can just google. You can do that while you're doing other things. You can be watching and listening to Douglas McCarthy talking about Open GLAM. Physical meetings are good but will everybody be available to attend the physical meeting, when you are having it, so I personally prefer pre-recorded videos and all of that you can get afterwards.
Olubusola Afolabi
I agree with video and audio recordings, because it's going to be very easy to follow through. Because with MOOCs courses now, a lot of people have started but they get disconnected or stop being active. With audio recordings you get the feeling of listening to the presentations, listening to these courses and listening to all this knowledge, you can follow most talks while doing that. There can also be modules for that region or for further consultations or information on their web page or their website that would aid the training. Video or audio recordings go a long way and impact the audience and would be best because the whole coordination of these in-person meetings is difficult to make, so I think audio and video recordings are the best way to reach out.
Alaafiabami
How do you think we can engage private museums, private libraries into this? We've reached out to some of those where even the parts we were expecting to be responsible. We approached some private organizations that do not belong to the government and they have not been receptive. So what means, do you think that we're in your region that you think we can apply.
(Susanna)
I think this needs exploration. Because I think the kind of justification that is often used is that as taxpayers we have already paid for this or that. It's like your duty as a servant of the public. This doesn’t necessarily apply to these private instances because they pay it from their funds, but somehow I also have a feeling that many private foundations, maybe because they are in possession of funds, and that they need to make societally important use for their funds. The societal benefit might still be important for them as well. I think pleading to their role in this society and that the perseverance of Nigerian culture is just as important for them.
How about creative or different or novel ways of working with open cultural heritage. What would you like to try? Do you see any value there?
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
I think I've come to terms with the fact that this Open GLAM process might be boring. if you find it interesting, yay, if you don't, I understand. I currently don't have any ideas, I don't have any ideas about rebranding it to look for. I just believe that it is symbolically boring. I have just come to terms with that everybody would not be interested, there has to be a lot of trial and error. And if it works, fine, if it doesn't work, we will find a way to make it work.
Isaac Oloruntimilehin
So I'll say that it's boring, but there could be ways to make it fun, through storytelling. So, for me, there is the need to incorporate storytelling, because most people in the country might not even care that you opened up works. What if there is storytelling for impact or for our needs of advocacy, for the works that have been digitized, or we discovered this work from the 1940s was as a result of the trade agreements returned to the securities and the dues or something. There’s a way to talk about culture, to reach out to the emotions of people. I'm sure many people will be excited if some works are restituted back to Africa, there’s a way to make it interesting through storytelling. That's the idea I have, storytelling to reach out to people's emotions, and to celebrate their culture. Africans are always happy when we discover something great that we don't know.
It gets and goes. For Wiki Loves Africa 2019 someone photographed the Farin Ruwa waterfall in Nasarawa, one of the highest in Africa. Most people did not know about it because the location was remote. So it seems like that would actually make people happy, and will actually promote activities that can generate income for this library or museum by visiting all of those. So, though the process of getting it or doing that might not be easy on the part of the GLAM professionals or advocates like us, it can be interesting to the people that are just there by storytelling.
Olubusola Afolabi
I personally don’t find this boring. The way we can make it interesting to others, storytelling is one thing. All those amazing tours or competitions, a lot of good ideas, like me, I really love listening to historical stories like telling how something came to be or how something came to existence. Hearing those stories, I am now able to visualize these things, the old artifacts or if it’s part of history, it makes it more exciting for me. You can find people that are interested in this, and knowing something excites you will be willing to learn and know more and then we need to be open to ideas and all the things. Telling stories and creating tours or competitions on these topics can actually interest and attract more people.
What would you like to be able to get as a result from this, or things like this for your use?
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
I think the transcript from this will also be useful. Also if you can connect us to organizations doing similar things in the rest of the world so we can rub minds and share ideas. I remember Hack4OpenGLAM and listening to Hilman Fathoni talk about documenting the public domain in Indonesia. That is what prompted us to do so in Nigeria. So connections like that are very important and resourceful and the newsletters you read something, you can just share with those, hey Alaafia, I read this, you guys might want to read this. Are you free to join this call, like me just joining the PD group and listening to what Brigitte, Tomo, Deborah, lots of things they mentioned about public domain items, and maybe realize that how we are way behind in Africa. So those are the things that I believe are resourceful.
Isaac Oloruntimilehin
Your newsletter for Hack4OpenGLAM was really interesting for me to read. And I know from this lady in India who founded the Digital Heritage Lab … So, I guess we even could get ways to learn and see examples of what people have done, I can give those ideas to like maybe do these things in South America, Brazil in Indonesia in Pakistan, now be able to manage via organizations are providing support to people doing this work through the you know that you share, there's this opportunity to do this.
There's this learning opportunity, maybe a school is organizing something about the next level of technology. I think some people I know are enthusiastic about doing something with the blockchain and all of that, cultural history and heritage. So things like that would be helpful going forward.
Olubusola Afolabi
Connections with other organizations learn from their experience, understand the barriers. Just trying to get ideas from them and connect us with organizations that can help us, and are in line with our vision and mission.
Alaafiabami Oladipupo
We announce our activities through our website for now, we are still trying to create a structure that will be sustainable, so we are taking things slow.