Welcome to episode 25 of Open Culture VOICES! VOICES is a vlog series of short interviews with open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) experts from around the world. The Open Culture Program at Creative Commons aims to promote better sharing of cultural heritage in GLAMs collections. With Open Culture VOICES, we’re thrilled to bring you various perspectives from dozens of experts speaking in many different languages on what it’s like to open up heritage content online. In this episode, we hear from Iolanda Pensa, president of Wikimedia Italy, and a senior researcher and head of research for “Culture and Territory” at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI). Iolanda is interested in strengthening the visibility of archives and research content through collaborative knowledge building, innovative interfaces, and educational tools like Creative Commons and Wikipedia. She was previously the scientific director of WikiAfrica from 2007 until 2012, and in 2011 conceived and directed “Share Your Knowledge: Wikipedia and Creative Commons for cultural institutions.” 

Iolanda responds to the following questions: 

1. What are the main benefits of open GLAM?
2. What are the barriers?
3. Could you share something someone else told you that opened up your eyes and mind about open GLAM?
4. Do you have a personal message to those hesitating to open up collections?

Closed captions are available for this video, you can turn them on by clicking the CC icon at the bottom of the video. A red line will appear under the icon when closed captions have been enabled. Closed captions may be affected by Internet connectivity — if you experience a lag, we recommend watching the videos directly on YouTube.

Episodes will be released twice a week until June 2022. Missed episode 24 of our Open Culture VOICES series? Catch up here >>