Activities
OKC works to identify, instigate, and secure funding for projects that expand the digital commons and facilitate its use. Working with research libraries, cultural heritage institutions, funders, and their partners we support digitization of printed collections, the open availability and use of scanned and born-digital materials, and the long-term preservation of such works. OKC’s strategy focuses on the following areas of activity:
Digitization
A key focus of our efforts is on bringing the printed works in library collections to the Internet under terms that support the vision of a knowledge commons. While many libraries have been selectively scanning their legacy collections for more than a decade, funds have been too scarce to make dramatic headway or undertake comprehensive library digitization. OKC started the Medical Heritage Library project in 2009 to support large-scale collaborative digitization.
Workflow challenges and funding continue to present a significant obstacle to large-scale book scanning by libraries. We believe there is a need for low-cost, replicable solutions for digitization centers at locations across the country. We identify and participate in testing digitization solutions, which may include next-generation versions of current production facilities or entirely new service offerings. We will also initiate and seek funding for digitization projects that “reassemble” in the digital space thematic collections held in institutions across the country.
Tool building
Mass digitization of human knowledge has opened the door to groundbreaking computational research strategies. Data mining, named-entity analysis, multi-lingual processing, and other techniques can reveal patterns, relationships, and other useful information that lead to new knowledge. OKC supports the development of tools and projects that expand use of digitized works for computational research and demonstrate the importance of the knowledge commons.
We are particularly interested in identifying and building new tools that make use of current technologies to integrate digital content into the everyday world of information-seekers. We have funded a planning project to mine the content of open, digitized books and integrate it into familiar knowledge environments like Wikipedia. For more detail, see the WIkipedia Gateway project summary.
Community building
There is a need for focused, ongoing collaboration among libraries and cultural heritage organizations that are contributing to development of a knowledge commons. In addition to facilitating the strategies described above, collaboration will allow stakeholders to create an agenda of their own rather than simply responding to actions by the commercial giants active in the e-book space. Via stakeholder communications and meetings as well as sustained staff work, OKC will serve as the platform for such collaboration.
Advocacy
As a network built around shared interests and goals, OKC will serve as an advocate for governmental, institutional, and community policies and norms that advance the development of a knowledge commons. This will be accomplished via activities that make the case for a knowledge commons in the media, with funders, and in the legislative context. In addition, liaising with organizations whose interests intersect those of the OKC community will allow us to amplify our voice.
Our goals are to explain why the efforts of commercial players alone are not a substitute for the knowledge commons, why new approaches to intellectual property policy are needed, and why new funding strategies are need to support the public benefits of a knowledge commons.