Comments on: GLAM WIKI: Finding Common Ground

By: Jose Robertson

Jose Robertson — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:20:56 +0000

Recommendation 7 of the Attorney-General’s ‘Review of Digital Agenda Act reforms’ – April 2003 [see http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/Publications_ReviewofDigitalAgendaActreforms-April2003 contained wording that would address a lot of problems related to copyright and access discussed above, i.e. ‘That provided that the provision can be drafted in a technologically neutral way, and that no owners demonstrate, within the course of public consultation on the amendments, that their interests are likely to be adversely affected, sections 49 and 50 should be amended so as to allow low resolution reproductions of the whole of an artistic work to be copied and communicated, without infringing copyright’.

Unfortunately this proposed amendment, though originally put forward by the National Gallery of Australia and the National Museum of Australia, did not find its way into the Copyright Amendment Act 2006.

By: Gnangarra

Gnangarra — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:14:30 +0000

As a person with aboriginal heritage, a Wikimedian and a Western Australian I’m actually unware of what Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies is and does for our communities. It is to me very suprising to learn that they are a collection agency and the extent of the collection.

The aboriginal communities/culture are closed to most of the Australian communities, due to past practices by that community and to cultural(“religious”) requirements. GLAM Wiki:Finding common ground, was about finding ways to open up collections make them freely available for use, re-use to all of the community.

We need to preserve the histories of all Australians as priority digitisation is a part of those methods but in the end what ever, where ever the collection if people cant openly access it then its preservation becomes meaningless.

By: Rod Stroud

Rod Stroud — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:06:32 +0000

Your paper is much appreciated in opening up the public awareness of greater access to the collections in government cultural institutions.

Unfortunately, no one from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) was invited despite our role as a collecting agency.

As you would know, AIATSIS holds the largest collection of print and audiovisual collections relating to Australian Indigenous peoples and their cultures.

It is critical that in this debate that the digital preservation of our collections and Indigenous collections in other agencies are given the greatest priority as Australia’s foundation cultures – and so much at risk ie language

Once again, I applaud your raising of these issues