images, the internet archive, and the open content alliance

Brewster Kahle spoke briefly in the Opening Plenary at the Coalition for Networked Information Task Force Meeting  this week about the need for libraries to 'walk the walk' and apply the principles of  openness that demand from publishers to the content they are creating themselves. These were ideas he, Dan Greenstein, Jim Michalko and others followed up in a breakout session that went into more detail about the Open Content Archive. Brewster is understandably concerned about the availability of content and the artificial limitations placed on the utility networked content by an unwillingness to share -- or is that a desire to own?

What Brewster said was that he thought that the game was 'over' for images, given the large-scale commercial picture libraries being constructed by Corbis and Getty Images. But what he missed was the significant amount of digital material in public and private cultural collections that aren't seen as 'appropriate' for commercial use. These are the stuff that the richness of history is made of... and are just the kind of thing that museums could -- and probably should -- contribute to the Open Content Alliance. Definitely something to explore further.

/jt