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GLAM-E Glossary

Definitions of key terms

The GLAM-E Team

The GLAM-E Glossary introduces you to key terms used across GLAM-E Lab resources and within open GLAM more broadly.

Table of Contents

About the GLAM-E Lab Toolkit

This handbook is part of the GLAM-E Lab Open GLAM Toolkit for cultural heritage organisations. The toolkit includes: 

Together, these materials will help you identify, prepare, and publish your digital collections for open access using public domain statements or other machine readable statements.

Before using this handbook, you will likely benefit from reading the Onboarding Document, Assessing and Mitigating Risk the Copyright Clearance Handbook for Public Domain Publication of Digital Collections. These resources will help you to understand open access and how to clear copyright in digital collections. 

This toolkit is not intended to be legal advice. You should always contact a qualified professional for legal support.

Author. A legal term used to refer to a person who makes a creative work and first owns the rights associated with it. 

Access. Making material free to view to users, i.e., “free to access,” also known as Gratis Open Access or Digital Access. 

CC Open Licenses (or Creative Commons Open Licenses). Creative Commons licenses applied by Rightsholders to permit use of materials for any purpose, including commercially. These include: 

CC Closed Licenses (or Creative Commons Closed Licenses). Creative Commons licenses applied by Rightsholders to permit use of materials that contain more restrictive terms than the CC Open Licenses. These include: 

CC Public Domain Tools (or Creative Commons Public Domain Tools). Creative Commons tools used to communicate that materials have no reuse restrictions and may be used freely without permission. These include:

Collection. Can refer to a specific set of items bound by a common denominator (e.g., a donor or genus) or to an organization’s entire collection. 

Content. All physical and digital objects, other images, scholarly research, databases, datasets, data, videos, software, and other materials.

Contractual Rights. The rights guaranteed to parties who enter into a valid contract.

Copyright. Refers to copyright (common law jurisdictions) and authors’ rights (civil law jurisdictions), rather than the wider category of rights falling within Intellectual Property Rights. 

Data. Collectively, the Metadata, Digital Surrogates, and any other Content produced by an organization. 

Data Controller. A controller determines the purpose and means of processing personal data.

Digital Surrogate. A verbatim reproduction of a physical object, usually an image or 3D model, stored in digital form. 

Digitization. Refers to the process of converting cultural materials and collections into digital formats. 

Digitalization. Refers to the digital potential of content, such as digitized collections, for example by connecting new data to existing data via digital technologies. 

Equivalent Licenses. Licenses that resemble CC Open Licenses and which may appear in the form of national government Licenses (e.g. Licence Ouverte, https://www.etalab.gouv.fr/licence-ouverte-open-licence/ ) or bespoke terms (e.g., “Open Use”).

GLAM. An acronym for Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums.

Intellectual Property. Content and other materials protected by Intellectual Property Rights. Intellectual Property may arise in the form of scholarly research, code, a database, Digital Surrogates, physical objects, or other media. 

Intellectual Property Rights. Includes but is not limited to rights, whether registered or unregistered, such as copyright and related rights, database rights, trademarks, industrial design rights, and patents. 

Labels. Refers to informative statements that communicate the rights or permissions status of a work. 

Licenses. Refers to legally enforceable mechanisms that allow a Rightsholder to grant permissions for the use and distribution of an in-copyright Work. 

Metadata. The textual and descriptive information (including Paradata, URIs and applicable Rights and Reuse information) about collections or archival holdings and their context which can be used to identify, interpret, and manage Content.

Moral Rights. Refers to the noneconomic rights of Authors to assert or withdraw authorship and object to the distortion or derogation of their Works. 

Open. Aligns with the Open Definition 2.1 by the Open Knowledge Foundation: “Knowledge is open if anyone is free to access, use, modify, and share it — subject at most to measures that preserve provenance and openness” (i.e., requirements to attribute the Author and distribute the Work under the same open conditions). The Open Definition 2.1 is available at https://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/.

Open Access Policy. Refers to an organization’s approach to open access for all Digital Surrogates of Public Domain Works and other eligible Content. An Open Access Policy may be internal (e.g., a formal policy document) or external (e.g., the terms on the organization’s website). 

Open Access Practice. Refers to an organization's approach to open access that typically proceeds on an individual project or output basis. Outside of that limited activity, the organization’s default approach is to assert copyright and either retain all rights (e.g., © Organization’s Name) or apply closed licenses (e.g., CC Closed Licenses).  

Open Access Program. The basic means by which an organization accomplishes activities related to their Open Access Policy or Open Access Practice. 

Open GLAM. Refers to the independent movement that has been associated with Open Knowledge Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation, Creative Commons, Galleries, Libraries Archives, Museums, and many other cultural organizations. 

OpenGLAM. Refers to the coordinated group of individuals and organizations supporting the Open GLAM movement (https://openglam.org/). 

Open Licensing. Refers to the publication of Content under open licenses or public domain tools. Open Licensing is central to open movements including but not limited to open access, open culture, open data, open educational resources (OER), open GLAM, open knowledge, open science, and open source. 

Orphan Work. Refers to creative works that are subject to copyright for which one or more of the Rightsholders is either unknown or cannot be located. 

Paradata. The textual and descriptive information about the process by which Content (e.g., a Digital Surrogate) has been created or modified. 

Personal Data. Any information related to an identified or identifiable living natural person.

Public Domain. All subject matter not protected by Intellectual Property Rights, whether those rights never existed, have expired, or have been waived. 

Reuse. Making material free to view (i.e., “Access”) and reuse for all purposes, including commercial purposes, by users, i.e., “free to reuse,” also known as Libre Open Access.

Rights. Refers to legal entitlements including but not limited to Intellectual Property Rights, Contractual Rights, and Personal Data Rights.

Rightsholders. Individuals and legal persons who hold rights in Content and other materials typically held, generated, contributed, or published as part of the digital collection. Rightsholders may include the organization, their employees or contractors, donors, Users, or other Third Parties.

RightsStatements.org Labels. The set of twelve standardized labels designed by the RightsStatements.org Consortium and published at https://rightsstatements.org/.

Services. Refers to the organization’s website, data, and interfaces, and any services provided by the organization. 

Terms of Use. Refers to the Terms of Use of the organization’s website. 

Third-Party Rightsholders. Any natural or legal person(s) who own or have contributed Content to the organization, including but not limited to donors, Users, and other individuals or organizations. 

Traditional Cultural Expressions (or TCE). Refers to the tangible and intangible forms by which Traditional Knowledge may be expressed. TCEs are described by the World Intellectual Property Organization to include expressions such as “music, dance, art, designs, names, signs and symbols, performances, ceremonies, architectural forms, handicrafts and narratives, or many other artistic and cultural expressions” which are “integral to the cultural and social identities of indigenous and local communities, embody know-how and skills, and transmit core values and beliefs” (https://www.wipo.int/tk/en/folklore/). 

Traditional Knowledge (or TK). Described by the World Intellectual Property Organization as: “knowledge, know-how, skills and practices that are developed, sustained and passed on from generation to generation within a community, often forming part of its cultural or spiritual identity,” including “knowledge resulting from intellectual activity in a traditional context” such as “innovations,” and extending to contexts such as “agricultural, scientific, technical, ecological and medicinal knowledge as well as biodiversity-related knowledge” (https://www.wipo.int/tk/en/tk/).  

URI. A Uniform Resource Identifier and/or URL (Uniform Resource Locator). 

Use. Making material free to view (i.e., “Access”) and to download for uses compliant with the applicable laws, such as any national copyright exceptions or contractual restrictions impacting such use. 

User(s). Natural persons who access or use the organization’s website or digital collections, including casual visitors to the website. 

User Contributions. Content contributed to an organization’s platform by Users, such as commentary, questions, annotations, opinions, assertions, or Personal Data. 

Work. Refers to an output that is subject to copyright law (e.g. creative work), including works that are not protected by copyright (e.g., public domain work). 

GLAM-E Lab Authors

Michael Weinberg Francesca Farmer Andrea Wallace