input wanted!
My library is big on open access and all kinds of other wonderful open ideas. I love them for it. Our Digital Library, in particular, releases most of our images under Creative Commons licenses (exceptions being digitized items that are still in copyright). Unfortunately, most institutions don't embrace openness like we do. Last summer, I attended a meeting of Philadelphia-area special collections libraries and nearly wept with frustration when everyone at that meeting was all "DRM!!! We must protect our digital content!!!" Since then, I have been trying (in a very back-burner sort of way, obviously) to come up with an idea for showing off our own use of Creative Commons and how that's a good (great! awesome!) thing. And finally I was randomly struck with inspiration last week.
(This inspiration turned out to be especially timely since this week Yale [announced] their own "digital commons" and people on Twitter have been chirping excitedly about it because it's Yale and they have that stupid Big Name Clout that we don't, even though we've been doing Creative Commons since our Digital Library began. Bitterness at the Ivy Leagues aside, I got even more supremely annoyed when I actually looked at their ["digital commons"], which apparently everyone chirping excitedly hasn't actually done? Because it's nothing exciting at all. First, I couldn't find half the things they listed as being ready. The ones I did find were terrible. Yes, you can see them, but the images aren't useful at all, certainly not for use in publications or scholarly study. Check out [this painting] for instance; at that size, you can't make out any of the details an art historian would want to look at and it's not even useful for anything else I can think of. It's tiny. My [Digital Library] releases large, high-quality scans — currently only jpegs are available online, but tiffs are available on request (still at no cost) and we'd like to put them online once we figure out how to do that without killing our servers. And we've been doing this for years. It really bothered me to see people getting so excited over Yale's ridiculously tiny "open access" images. It may be a huge step for the Ivy Leagues, but it's nothing new or groundbreaking in the broader world of digital libraries.)
So, the idea: I want to organize a Creative Commons Art Remix Contest.
It would be broadly open to anyone, and artists could use any CC-licensed images, but since the contest would be sponsored by my Digital Library, we'd stipulate that at least one image has to be from our collection. Submissions would have to be in digital form, but could be in any type of graphic media. The winner and runners-up would be displayed in an online exhibit.
I had an insanely busy week so I haven't had the time to start researching/planning/thinking about this in depth yet. Do any of you know of any similar contests? Or any fanart remix contests that I could adapt rules from?
Also, what would be a good prize? For other library contests, we usually throw some sort of Apple device at people (iPad, iPod Touch), but I feel like we need something more relevant to the openness of Creative Commons and what we'd be trying to promote. Much as I love my Apple products, they're not really fans of openness.
Thoughts? Ideas? Especially from my artistically-inclined friends. ♥
This entry was originally posted at http://winkingstar.dreamwidth.org/284184.html.
(This inspiration turned out to be especially timely since this week Yale [announced] their own "digital commons" and people on Twitter have been chirping excitedly about it because it's Yale and they have that stupid Big Name Clout that we don't, even though we've been doing Creative Commons since our Digital Library began. Bitterness at the Ivy Leagues aside, I got even more supremely annoyed when I actually looked at their ["digital commons"], which apparently everyone chirping excitedly hasn't actually done? Because it's nothing exciting at all. First, I couldn't find half the things they listed as being ready. The ones I did find were terrible. Yes, you can see them, but the images aren't useful at all, certainly not for use in publications or scholarly study. Check out [this painting] for instance; at that size, you can't make out any of the details an art historian would want to look at and it's not even useful for anything else I can think of. It's tiny. My [Digital Library] releases large, high-quality scans — currently only jpegs are available online, but tiffs are available on request (still at no cost) and we'd like to put them online once we figure out how to do that without killing our servers. And we've been doing this for years. It really bothered me to see people getting so excited over Yale's ridiculously tiny "open access" images. It may be a huge step for the Ivy Leagues, but it's nothing new or groundbreaking in the broader world of digital libraries.)
So, the idea: I want to organize a Creative Commons Art Remix Contest.
It would be broadly open to anyone, and artists could use any CC-licensed images, but since the contest would be sponsored by my Digital Library, we'd stipulate that at least one image has to be from our collection. Submissions would have to be in digital form, but could be in any type of graphic media. The winner and runners-up would be displayed in an online exhibit.
I had an insanely busy week so I haven't had the time to start researching/planning/thinking about this in depth yet. Do any of you know of any similar contests? Or any fanart remix contests that I could adapt rules from?
Also, what would be a good prize? For other library contests, we usually throw some sort of Apple device at people (iPad, iPod Touch), but I feel like we need something more relevant to the openness of Creative Commons and what we'd be trying to promote. Much as I love my Apple products, they're not really fans of openness.
Thoughts? Ideas? Especially from my artistically-inclined friends. ♥
This entry was originally posted at http://winkingstar.dreamwidth.org/284184.html.