D5.5 Guidelines & FAQs (GM) industries – Final version

As one of its main endeavours, reCreating Europe aims at engaging with its stakeholders to produce deliverables that effectively contribute to the state of the art of research and possibly build a regulatory framework towards a culturally diverse, accessible creative Europe. With a specific focus on cultural heritage institutions like galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs), the activities of WP5 precisely address the needs of such organisations through a mixed methodology that combines theoretical research with empirical analysis, e.g., online questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, which most WP5 deliverables have or will be based on.

The present output, which comprises a descriptive analysis of the legal framework (part 2), a set of Frequently Asked Questions (part 3) and Guidelines (part 4), all focusing on digital preservation, the use of orphan works and use of out-of-commerce works, precisely follows this approach. The work builds upon preceding deliverables D5.1 Report on the existing legal framework for Galleries and Museums (GM) in EU1 and D5.2 Report on the existing legal framework for Libraries and Archives (LA) in the EU.2 Both these reports were produced based on the research carried out under T5.1 European Legal Framework for GLAM industries: from closure to openness.

The goal of this deliverable is to produce a first draft of Guidelines and FAQs to help GLAMs deal with some selected issues arising from digitisation. The draft will be circulated during the upcoming workshops organised under WP5, in which participants will be invited to discuss the FAQs and apply the guidelines to suggest (a) whether different and/or clearer rules (i.e., considering laws and policies) may facilitate the process of dealing with the identified controversial issues, and (b) whether the current legal framework is too strict to comply with, and thus possibly hindering GLAM’s mission of democratising culture.

The present deliverable also mirrors - to the extent possible - its twin deliverable D5.4 Guidelines & FAQs (LA) industries - Interim version,3 which was dedicated to Libraries and Archives, under T5.2 Implementation of legal requirements and criteria for openness.
Both D5.3 and D5.4 are designed to serve as instruments (thus their temporary nature) for further discussion with stakeholders under T5.3 Valuing and engaging in openness with GLAM, to which these deliverables are presented during the dissemination or training events agreed under the project’s Grant Agreement. The outcomes of such a process will flow into the final version of the twin Guidelines & FAQs, with the wider goal of supporting digitalisation in the framework of a rebalanced copyright law.

It is worth specifying that the present deliverable has been used as a basis to develop a set of FAQs and Guidelines. The FAQs and the Guidelines have been adjusted after gaining specific insights from cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) that had tested the interim version, with the ultimate aim to provide a final version of FAQs and Guidelines with a bottom-up methodology to be more effective and useful for the GLAM community. GLAM professionals, who are on the front line, helped to reshape and adjust the FAQs that appeared too technical or comprehensible only to an academic or other expert audience and also to further clarify the Guidelines, addressing the most contentious topics they face in their everyday activities.

Note: Please see the Word Doc upload of this report for a screen-reader-accessible version. If you experience other accessibility issues with our work, please contact h2020recreatingeurope@gmail.com.