Open Images: the open-minded media platform

Image 1: Homepage

Open Images is an open media platform that offers online access to audiovisual archive material from various sources to stimulate -creative- reuse. Footage from audiovisual collections can be downloaded and remixed into new works. Users also have the opportunity to add their own material to the Open Images and thus expand the collection. Open Images provides an API (http://www.openimages.eu/api), making it easy for third parties to develop mashups. The platform currently (February 2011) offers access to over 1.300 items from various sources, including a considerable number of newsreels from the collection of Sound and Vision. This amount will grow substantially over the coming years as new items will be uploaded continuously, and as new partners join the initiative.

Image 2: Media Item Page with
Creative Commons License Information

The items are available under Creative Commons licenses or they are part of the Public Domain. The ‘open’ nature of the platform is further underscored by the use of open video formats (Ogg Theora), open standards (HTML5, OAI-PMH) and open source software components. Furthermore, all software that is developed within the scope of Open Images is released under the GNU General Public License (http://www.openimages.eu/source). Items published on Open Images and the accompanying descriptions (metadata) are accessible through an Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). This enables third parties to retrieve the stored metadata and media files in a structured way.

Image 3: Advanced Search

In cooperation with Wikimedia Netherlands, Open Images continuously contributes audiovisual content to Wikimedia Commons (and is currently responsible for over 11% of the video content on Wikimedia Commons). OAI-PMH-based technology has been developed to fully automate the ingestion process from Open Images to Wikimedia Commons. Already, hundres of items from Open Images have been uploaded and a large proportion of them are used to enrich over 550 textual Wikipedia entries with related audiovisual content. In December 2010, these entries were viewed nearly 1.2 million times. This shows the potential for the cultural heritage sector to collaborate with the Wikimedia Foundation to reach new and greater audiences within a meaningful context.

Image 4: Example of Audiovisual Enrichment
of an Article on Wikipedia

Image 5: Statistics of the Usage and Views
of Open Images Media on Wikipedia
in December 2010