5 Responses to “Mission Impossible? Basque Culture 2.0”

1. Zahava D. Doering
   July 8th, 2010 @ 8:57 am

   Several thoughts come to mind…
   re #1. This is a fine principle with the serious exception that it does not specify FOR FREE. In most cases, the public that is using cultural institutions is paying twice: first via taxation and then admission fees. Here the Smithsonian model is worth considering: funding it with both public and private funds and making it available for FREE.
   re #2. Increasingly, in the US, public institutions – generally local governments or universities – privatize in the form of deaccession. We all need a solid definition of what is meant by cultural heritage.
   re #3. Yes, but… What mechanisms do we have to put in place in order to ensure minimum standards of accuracy when content is used by “anyone.” What impact does this have on the intellectual development of young people? Even moreso, how do we prevent the use of content for propoganda use, subversion, denial of facts, reinterpretation of history, etc. ???
   Sorry I cannot join you live,
   ZDD, Editor
   Curator: The Museum Journal

2. Perian Sully
   July 8th, 2010 @ 2:53 pm

   Just some thoughts stemming from Zahava’s…

   #1: One would hope that the “free” is implicit, but Zahava makes a good point. What *level* of free is acceptable? For images and other forms of media, I don’t see institutions that do make some revenue on licensing giving that up, nor do I foresee artist rights societies allowing modern and contemporary works to be “given” away. Is there some standard we should push for? And for data and metadata, can we provide that entirely for free? I would certainly hope so, as charging for access to information and scholarship seems completely anathema to our missions. But museums, libraries, and archives charge for that access all the time.

   #2: One solution to this may be the deaccession of physical objects (when unavoidable), but retaining the information. But that does make me wonder if there’s some elaboration somewhere… access to *what*? What are we talking about? Access to information? Access to physical objects? Access to our scholars? Obviously the first of these is somewhat the easiest to solve. But have the other two been addressed?

   #3: A very real problem is being able to link the information back to “home base”. Even if information is usable and shared and modified by anyone, I like to think that our ace in the hole is that we have scholars and researchers able to provide primary research. If we can ensure the linkback, the issues of fact degradation (for lack of a better term) will hopefully be minimized. We’re not that much different than a university in that way.

   I will voice a little bit of objection to the idea of preventing people from “misappropriation” of materials. I don’t think we can truly have it both ways. Culture is reappropriated all the time, and it is codified as freedom of speech. Even if we don’t like it, we have to recognize that the stuff isn’t “ours” – it’s “theirs”, even if the “theirs” are people who don’t share our personal (or even institutional) belief structures.

   That being said, would an institution (say, USHMM) with a mission to educate about and reduce discrimination or human rights abuses be at rights to challenge misappropriation of their assets, when those assets are used in ways diametrically opposed to the mission? It’s a troubling thought, and one that needs to be discussed.

3. amaia
   July 9th, 2010 @ 7:23 am

   Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us. It will be very interesting to see how the two Commons (Smithsonian and Basque) grow and behave in such different environments.

   Amaia Isasti
   Web project manager at Arazi ikt s.l. (Basque Country) and collaborating with the local government on the iniciative Gipuzkoa 2.0.

4. David Nixon
   July 13th, 2010 @ 11:03 pm

   Re#1: Governments have a responsibility to create an environment ripe for private sector investment. In the field of digital interpretation, how can this be if the institution floods the market place with free content?

5. Nancy Proctor
   July 18th, 2010 @ 10:00 am

   Webcasts of the Basque 2.0 event are now available here:
   http://gipuzkoa2.net/index.php/es/jardunaldietako-materiala

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