Definition of Digital Community Heritage

In the context of the Creative Commons Open Culture Working Group “Digital Community Heritage”, a collaborative working definition of the term has been proposed:

Digital Community Heritage initiatives are defined as collective projects where community members and/or users meaningfully contribute to a community heritage-related common cause by digital means which promotes the interests of the community and/or the greater public.

In order to better map the spectrum of digital community heritage, from bottom-up community-led actions to top-down institutional initiatives, a three-fold categorisation is being proposed:

• Community-driven initiatives are led by communities and their members; they may exist entirely outside an institution or they can actively involve GLAMs. Communities might initiate a project which may (or may not) become a joint partnership (a co-creation) between community members and an institution.

• Community-fueled initiatives, when communities may be sought out by a GLAM institution or other agency (who initiates the project) to actively participate; this participation could play out at different levels, such as contributing heritage-related materials to the institution(s), collaborating, and jointly or wholly curate their display, representation and interpretation.

• Community-oriented initiatives can be initiated and mediated by institutions that orient their cultural heritage materials around particular community interests and perhaps plan community events around these projects or involve community-based heritage knowledge.

Cite as: Ziku, M., & Fabos, B. (2022). Digital Community Heritage and Open Access. CC Open Culture Working Group Digital Community Heritage [Report]. https://doi.org/10.21428/9eb74dbf.0c46e6be