Risk Area: Financial

Financial constraints and monetization risks

Insights from the literature review and online survey conducted by the Working Group highlight that financial challenges heavily influence institutions' decisions to adopt open access practices. Concerns about potential revenue loss, particularly for those relying on licensing and sales, were frequently cited. Additionally, the costs associated with implementing and sustaining open access initiatives further restrict the capacity of some institutions to make their materials publicly accessible.

“We prefer to maintain copyright on the images of our collections as use of images is one of our few income streams.”

Museum, United Kingdom

Below, you will find the key financial risks identified, actionable strategies to mitigate these risks, tools to support the implementation of the recommended actions, and good practices to get inspired.

Key Risks

• Potential revenue loss due to open access business models.

• Financial burden of digitization, licensing, and maintaining open access infrastructure.

Mitigation Strategies

• Apply for grants: Explore funding opportunities dedicated to digitization and open access projects, which can help alleviate financial pressure.

• Engage in partnerships: Collaborate with other institutions to share resources, reduce costs, and broaden reach.

• Explore low-cost digitisation ideas: Digitise with smartphones; pilot the work with a small collection; use free platforms to publish materials for any reuse purpose, and low-cost platforms to publish materials with rights restrictions; coordinate a volunteer network to digitise materials; digitise on demand for a small fee.

Tools & Resources

• Training and guidelines on how to build low-cost digitizing facilities and how to maintain the data:

  • ​Mobile Digitizing (MobiDig) project online platform offering an open and innovative training on the topic for librarians, archivists, managers of small organizations and Vocational Education and Training (VET) teachers in the field of library science.

  • Pavis, M., Wallace, A., Saunders, S. (2023) Doing Digitisation on a Budget: A Guide to Low-Cost Digital Projects, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

• CC Toolkit for Business: A set of resources to allow professional individuals and organizations understand why the use of CC licenses can be a strategic instrument to consider in their business models.

• Grant databases: Various platforms provide information on available grants for cultural heritage institutions.

• McCarthy, D. (2024). Balancing access and income – the dilemma of museum image licensing. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13371244.

Good Practices

• Pekel, J. (2014) Democratising the Rijksmuseum, Europeana Foundation.

• Pekel, J. (2015) Making a Big Impact on a Small Budget: How the Livrustkammaren och Skoklosters slott med Stiftelsen Hallwylska museet (LSH) Shared their Collection with the World, Europeana Foundation.

• Valeonti, F., Hudson-Smith, A., Terras, M. et al. (2018) Reaping the Benefits of Digitisation: Pilot study exploring revenue generation from digitised collections through technological innovation, conference presentation.

• Valeonti, F., Terras, M., Hudson-Smith, A., Zarkali, C. (2019) Examining Mobile Print-on-Demand as an Alternative to Image Licensing for Monetising Digitisation to Promote OpenGLAM.

• ​Low-cost digitisation ideas from real life projects in Pavis, M., Wallace, A., Saunders, S. (2023) Doing Digitisation on a Budget: A Guide to Low-Cost Digital Projects, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Use cases

Publishers don’t make all their publications open access, because this would lead to a significant loss of revenue from hard copy sales. This loss impacts the financial sustainability of the journals, especially since they do not charge author processing fees to offset costs.

Repository managers don’t make high-resolution image collections fully open access, because unrestricted use could lead to commercial exploitation without compensation. This undermines potential revenue from licensing agreements with partner picture agencies, affecting the institution’s funding and financial viability.

Institution administrators don’t make all digital assets open access, because without control over usage, there’s a risk of images being used in commercial products. This affects revenue streams from licensing, which may be crucial for funding preservation and digitization projects.