The Yale Daily Bulletin announced that “Scholars, artists and other individuals around the world will enjoy free access to online images of millions of objects housed in Yale’s museums, archives, and libraries thanks to a new ‘Open Access’ policy that the University announced today.”
Ok, so far so good… I’m generally in favor of open access.
The article then went on to report that “in a departure from established convention, no license will be required for the transmission of the images and no limitations will be imposed on their use. ”
Ok, that could be positive… especially since remix culture is all the rage these days, right?
But then The Daily Bulletin’s article went into greater detail about exactly what holdings they’re including in this mass-digitization and licensing initiative:
The Yale treasures that are now accessible under the new policy are as wide-ranging as the collections themselves and include such diverse items as the war bonnet of Oglala Lakota leader “Red Cloud”
So I really hope the article is wrong, but this sounds as if Yale is mass-digitizing the cultural materials of living indigenous communities. Then, Yale has decided that images of these indigenous cultural materials images should be free and without restriction, even to corporations. I don’t need to connect the dots much more than this, but this sounds like a case of cultural appropriation 2.0* — one perhaps done under the auspices of “open access” and “creative commons,” but one that in this article appears to lack direct input from cultural stakeholders.
I hope that’s not the case.
*Bill Hart-Davidson, Michael McLeod and I have recently talked about these issues of potential harm-through-digitization in relation to our own work at the 2010 Symposium for Reimagining the Archive and the 2011 Conference of College Composition and Communication. Drawing on the indigenous work of Malea Powell, Craig Howe, Angela Haas, Moria Simpson, Qwo-Li Driskill and others, we’ve referred to these kinds of sweeping digitization projects (specifically those absent of cultural stakeholders) as potentially doing a kind of “tacit cultural violence” (termed by Hart-Davidson).
Hi there-
I was directed to your blog in a post by Qwo-Li Driskill. I read with interest your reaction to the Yale initiative. I certainly agree with your concerns regarding the absence of consent on the part of cultural stakeholders. But let me suggest another way to look at this.
As you know, current federal legislation requires that federally-funded institutions (like universities and their associated collections) identify items in their holdings that are eligible for repatriation and make the appropriate tribal communities aware of these materials so that they can initiate the process of repatriation should they choose to do so (and many tribal communities choose not to). However, since many of the items (particularly artistic and archival materials but also including some more traditional museum objects) being digitized as part of this initiative are not covered under existing legislation regarding repatriation, their very existence or at least their location is likely unknown to the general public, including the tribal communities whose histories/cultures are reflected. Even if these communities and individuals knew of the existence, location, and status of these materials, their access to them has historically been anything but open or democratic. Instead, obtaining access to these collections generally requires a) the money to travel to the various repositories where they are housed and b) appropriate academic credentials that would permit one to view and/or interact with the materials. In other words, museums, archives, and libraries have traditionally reinforced limited access to items of cultural patrimony (broadly conceived) to only a very privileged few. Thus, providing open access to these materials may begin to facilitate a process of discovery by which tribal communities (and other non-academic individuals and communities) can become aware of the existence and location of objects, documents, artworks, etc. that pertain to them. This, in turn, may facilitate broader discussions about what kinds of materials should and should not be in museums, libraries, and similar repositories, the responsbilities of such institutions to the communities represented by these items, and the appropriateness of pursuing repatriation for some of these items (whether or not they are covered by existing legislation). There are some amazing American Indian studies scholars at Yale, including both academic faculty and professional staff at the various collections, and they have been working very hard over the past few years to initiate and sustain these very conversations, even when they are deemed unwelcome by their colleagues and/or supervisors. Is it wrong for items such as Red Cloud’s war bonnet (note: there are several of these floating around and provenance is not undisputed) to live at the Peabody museum instead of a Lakota community? Probably. Would it be better for museums and other repositories to categorically return items of cultural patrimony without engaging in lengthy debates and discussions about preservation and shared heritage? Probably. But these possbilities are far-off yet. In the meantime, open access to archival and museum materials means that indigenous people (and others) who do not have the scholarly credentials required to access these items may be able to have the same sort of access that we academics have long enjoyed. Despite the important issues you raise, issues which will undoubtedly be discussed more not less after the opening of these online collections, I believe the initiative is a valuable one.
Respectfully,
Angela Pulley Hudson
Texas A&M, History
p.s. In the interests of full disclosure, I completed my PhD at Yale and remain closely tied with faculty and staff there in AIS and other fields.
Hi Angela,
First, thank you for your wonderful insights. I completely agree with most of what you describe, and particularly that “open access to archival and museum materials means that indigenous people (and others) who do not have the scholarly credentials required to access these items may be able to have the same sort of access that we academics have long enjoyed.”
However, I know of no technical reason why this kind of digital access for cultural stakeholders may also be provided through a limited access archive (for example http://www.rrnpilot.org). Why open access for all collections? Is this simply an issue of expediency?
This won’t be universal by any means, but based on my work with the Samaritans I think that building digital archives to meet the needs of scholarly stakeholders is an opportunity for institutions to build relationships through collections. Furthermore, it’s an opportunity for communities to learn what institutions have, and to do UX/UCD design with those communities around digitization. It’s also an opportunity to explore a particular communities values around digitization.
While a lot of good may inadvertently come out of digitizing everything in Yale’s collection and providing open access to collections, I don’t agree that open access automatically means the right for anyone to remix or redistribute. I primarily see a major problem (though nice intentions) with the blanket CC-BY 3.0 license (the story appears to have been wrong about the CC-BY-NC-SA).
Re: Would it be better for museums and other repositories to categorically return items of cultural patrimony without engaging in lengthy debates and discussions about preservation and shared heritage?Probably.
I think it’s important to ask these questions, sure. I also think that it’s useful for the institution to ask the cultural stakeholders what would be useful for them, re: digitization. How can such efforts be tailored to meet their needs. Right now, I see Yale tailoring its efforts to the needs of scholars and publishers. I don’t see Yale making an overt effort to tailor the digitization of its collections to cultural stakeholders. The conversation needs to change.
Hi,
I thought that I would comment briefly on your statement “Right now, I see Yale tailoring its efforts to the needs of scholars and publishers. I don’t see Yale making an overt effort to tailor the digitization of its collections to cultural stakeholders.”
It’s understandable to me that you wouldn’t see these types of efforts taking place because the University doesn’t necessarily issue press releases when projects tailored to meet the needs of tribal communities are realized. That said, there is an important on-going digitization project, the Yale Indian Papers Project (http://www.library.yale.edu/yipp/index.html), that you might enjoy perusing.
I also happen to know of two recent cases where a curator at the Beinecke Library went out of his way to work with members of Native communities to share digital images, and did so in a way that met the distinct needs of those communities. During this academic year, I can think of three additional visits by prominent Native people (scholars, activists, and community members), where curators extended themselves and facilitated access to collections of particular interest to these individuals. While it’s true that these efforts are not part of an organized program to facilitate digital access, they do speak to a significant commitment to welcome Native people into the archives should they become aware of the collections and make their way to New Haven.
In addition to supporting occasional visits, curators and archivists, as well as staff members in the instructional technology group, have worked with me to develop the beta version of an American Indian Studies Resources portal (http://aisresources.commons.yale.edu) that is intended to facilitate awareness of and access to collections. This particular project benefits from professional staff members’ commitment to supporting the research efforts of students and scholars, many of whom are themselves Native people who have a very real stake in this work.
Can Yale do more? Certainly. Will the institution do more in the future? I hope so.
Respectfully,
Alyssa Mt. Pleasant (Tuscarora)
Assistant Professor of American Studies and History
Yale University
Hi Alyssa,
Many thanks for your thoughtful and most informative response. I’m happy to learn about these internal efforts to make Yale’s holdings more accessible for particular stakeholder groups. I wonder though just how many different cultural stakeholder groups are impacted by this kind of mass-digitization effort. Some of my work looks at the circulation of staged protest images (image events) over an extended period of time (five years), and the eventual negative appropriation of those images several years later (I’d be happy to send a chapter). I do fully expect that this project will have immediate, tangible benefits for interested scholars and some cultural stakeholder communities. There may even be a renewed focus, interest, and raised awareness about particular collections (This was the case for our Samaritan project, and one of reasons our cultural and scholarly stakeholders were interested in the project moving forward); however, I’m still skeptical about the long term consequences of combining a blanket CC BY-3.0 license with open access and mass digitization. I do hope that my skepticism turns out to be unnecessary.
Regards,
Jim