User:Vysotsky/test2025
3 Million Dutch cultural heritage images in Commons
[edit]Dutch GLAM institutions (libraries, archives and museums) were quick to join the open access movement. From 2000 onwards Dutch museums, archives and libraries made millions of images from their collections available online - no watermarks, open access. That was far from usual practice at museums at the time. I still vividly remember a meeting for cultural institutions in Florence in 2015. Lizzy Jongma of Rijksmuseum Amsterdam enthusiastically explained why the Rijksmuseum had decided to publish all images of art works from the Rijksmuseum that were in the Public Domain in high resolution on their website. As I was sitting in the back of the large room (an amphitheater, with at least one thousand attendants) I could closely watch museum directors shaking their heads in disbelief. Their first question was of course about "the business model". Jongma explained that Rijksmuseum wouldn't need to handle thousands of invoices of EUR 40 each anymore, and could diminish staff at that department from 30 to 5. The rest of the staff could be employed elsewhere in the museum, e.g. digitizing materials. Cheaper, and more beneficial to the world. At the same time, this would improve attention for the Rijksmuseum collections. "And these Chinese mugs might even have their Rembrandt colours improved - because they can now download highres originals."
Images copied to Commons on a large scale from 2009
[edit]Dutch GLAM institutions were helpful in bringing millions of images to Wikimedia Commons. My rough estimate is that 3 million images were brought to Commons during the years 2009 up to 2024. Most of the time the two parties formed a kind of alliance, in which the museums, archives and libraries make images available and facilitate the process of uploads by Wikimedians. To show this, I will give seven typical examples of Dutch GLAM taken to Commons in the following overview.
Dutch GLAM to Commons
[edit]| Institution | Date | Example | Number / usage (1-1-2025) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tropenmuseum Amsterdam | 2009-2010 | 
|
51,935 images; usage: 34,739 |
| Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed | 2012-2013 | 
|
486,362 images; usage: 54,601 |
| Naturalis Biodiversity Center | 2015-2016 | 
|
277,704 images; usage 33,856 |
| Stadsarchief Amsterdam | 2016-2018 | 
|
24,909 images; usage: 8,602 |
| Dutch National Archives (incl. Anefo) | 2017-2018 | 
|
531,292 images; usage: 244,521 |
| Rijksmuseum Amsterdam | 2018-2019 | 
|
545,860 images; usage 95,234 |
| Leiden University Libraries | 2010- | 
|
193,900 images; usage: 15,586 |
| More than 50 other collections | 2010- | 
|
est.: 1 Million images |
2,1 Million images from these 7 GLAM institutions were brought to Commons. These images are now used 487,000 times across Wiki. That's not bad at all. My rough estimate is that there are currently (Jan. 2025) 3 million Dutch GLAM images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Thanks to Wiki-colleagues Multichill, Basvb, Husky, Jan Arkesteijn, Hansmuller, Fæ, Olaf Janssen, Vera de Kok, Mr.Nostalgic, Clausule, Spinster, 85jesse, MichellevL and many others.
400,000 RCE images now in higher resolution
[edit]
Way back in 2011 the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE, Government Service for Dutch National Heritage) made 450,000 images of Dutch heritage available under a Creative Commnons license. These images were copied to Wikimedia Commons in 2012 and 2013. RCE later uploaded another 500,000 images to the RCE website, a.o. of shipwrecks and of Dutch cultural heritage in Africa, Asia and South America. The RCE website now holds almost 1 million images. But: the images uploaded 10 years ago were in low resolution. 400,000 of the RCE images uploaded in 2012 are now upgraded to higher resolution, thanks to Mr.Nostalgic who performed this task in the last months of 2024. By the way: RCE is busy making structured data for these images available, and making suggestions for uploading the next half a million images to Commons. Go for it!