Outreach Wiki outreachwiki https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Main_Page MediaWiki 1.47.0-wmf.9 first-letter Media Special Talk User User talk Wikimedia Wikimedia talk File File talk MediaWiki MediaWiki talk Template Template talk Help Help talk Category Category talk TimedText TimedText talk Module Module talk Translations Translations talk Topic 4 2239 277095 277094 2026-07-04T22:20:15Z ~2026-38095-20 57867 Start 277095 wikitext text/x-wiki {{Sandbox header/en}} <!-- Please leave this line alone! --> =Test= 704 Candy Crush Saga Wiki: Tasty Sugar Track Edits Currently Out Of Control (TST), Most Edits were made on 6/23, No New Episodes Will Be Released on 6/24, False?. 2:6 - 6:15, 130 days, (6:11+ to fill out). *6:16, 6:17, 6:18, 6:19, 6:20 (?) *6:21, 6:22, 6:23, 6:24, 6:25 (?) *6:26 (?) *6:27 (?) *6:28 (?) *6:29 (?) *6:30 (?) *7:1 (7:2) ''7:3'' *202 6525, Pot with Fork and Spoon, Bags with Sunglasses. *202 6526, Baskets, Tobacco Stuff or Socks. *202 6527, Food Shopping like Cola Bottles, Cans, Cordial and Others. *202 6528, Socks, Pairs of Shoes, Dressing Gowns. *202 6529, Towels, Cubes with Things. *202 6530, Cloths, Flowers Frisun or Soap. *202 6531, Food Shopping like Party Pies, Waters and Others. *202 6601, Pairs of Boots, Pillow or Podiatrist. *202 6602, Plates or Pans, Grated Cheese or Baskets. *202 6603, Forks, Pans and Other Kitchen Tools. *202 6604, Cups, Cordial Jug or Strawberry Milk. *202 6605, Food Shopping like Cans of Coca Cola, Waters, Cordials or Pile of Sauce. *202 6606, Purses, Lu Papers or Paper Towels. *202 6607, Candles, Statues or Pizza Boxes. *202 6608, Cups, Blankets and Others. *202 6609, Food Shoppibg like Cola Bottles, Sour Cream and Onion Chips or Cans. *202 6610, Towels, Cloths, Soap or Containers. *202 6611, Nachos, Apple N Raspberry Codrial or Stationary. *202 6612, Basket, Electric Bed with Instructions or Paint. *202 6613, Aerobar, Birthday Cake or Packet of Candles. Current, 202 6614. ($#!+). *202 6615. (Ancient Sturcturez, Ruins or Buildings). ''2026616'' edb58f8mu83mdh1xhjsatileyr3jg87 277096 277095 2026-07-04T22:20:37Z ~2026-38095-20 57867 277096 wikitext text/x-wiki {{Sandbox header/en}} <!-- Please leave this line alone! --> =Test= 704 - United States Candy Crush Saga Wiki: Tasty Sugar Track Edits Currently Out Of Control (TST), Most Edits were made on 6/23, No New Episodes Will Be Released on 6/24, False?. 2:6 - 6:15, 130 days, (6:11+ to fill out). *6:16, 6:17, 6:18, 6:19, 6:20 (?) *6:21, 6:22, 6:23, 6:24, 6:25 (?) *6:26 (?) *6:27 (?) *6:28 (?) *6:29 (?) *6:30 (?) *7:1 (7:2) ''7:3'' *202 6525, Pot with Fork and Spoon, Bags with Sunglasses. *202 6526, Baskets, Tobacco Stuff or Socks. *202 6527, Food Shopping like Cola Bottles, Cans, Cordial and Others. *202 6528, Socks, Pairs of Shoes, Dressing Gowns. *202 6529, Towels, Cubes with Things. *202 6530, Cloths, Flowers Frisun or Soap. *202 6531, Food Shopping like Party Pies, Waters and Others. *202 6601, Pairs of Boots, Pillow or Podiatrist. *202 6602, Plates or Pans, Grated Cheese or Baskets. *202 6603, Forks, Pans and Other Kitchen Tools. *202 6604, Cups, Cordial Jug or Strawberry Milk. *202 6605, Food Shopping like Cans of Coca Cola, Waters, Cordials or Pile of Sauce. *202 6606, Purses, Lu Papers or Paper Towels. *202 6607, Candles, Statues or Pizza Boxes. *202 6608, Cups, Blankets and Others. *202 6609, Food Shoppibg like Cola Bottles, Sour Cream and Onion Chips or Cans. *202 6610, Towels, Cloths, Soap or Containers. *202 6611, Nachos, Apple N Raspberry Codrial or Stationary. *202 6612, Basket, Electric Bed with Instructions or Paint. *202 6613, Aerobar, Birthday Cake or Packet of Candles. Current, 202 6614. ($#!+). *202 6615. (Ancient Sturcturez, Ruins or Buildings). ''2026616'' tuido429hj55ngnfmdbmxxhbd6x4ctn 277097 277096 2026-07-04T22:21:05Z ~2026-38095-20 57867 277097 wikitext text/x-wiki {{Sandbox header/en}} <!-- Please leave this line alone! --> =Test= 704 - United States of America? Candy Crush Saga Wiki: Tasty Sugar Track Edits Currently Out Of Control (TST), Most Edits were made on 6/23, No New Episodes Will Be Released on 6/24, False?. 2:6 - 6:15, 130 days, (6:11+ to fill out). *6:16, 6:17, 6:18, 6:19, 6:20 (?) *6:21, 6:22, 6:23, 6:24, 6:25 (?) *6:26 (?) *6:27 (?) *6:28 (?) *6:29 (?) *6:30 (?) *7:1 (7:2) ''7:3'' *202 6525, Pot with Fork and Spoon, Bags with Sunglasses. *202 6526, Baskets, Tobacco Stuff or Socks. *202 6527, Food Shopping like Cola Bottles, Cans, Cordial and Others. *202 6528, Socks, Pairs of Shoes, Dressing Gowns. *202 6529, Towels, Cubes with Things. *202 6530, Cloths, Flowers Frisun or Soap. *202 6531, Food Shopping like Party Pies, Waters and Others. *202 6601, Pairs of Boots, Pillow or Podiatrist. *202 6602, Plates or Pans, Grated Cheese or Baskets. *202 6603, Forks, Pans and Other Kitchen Tools. *202 6604, Cups, Cordial Jug or Strawberry Milk. *202 6605, Food Shopping like Cans of Coca Cola, Waters, Cordials or Pile of Sauce. *202 6606, Purses, Lu Papers or Paper Towels. *202 6607, Candles, Statues or Pizza Boxes. *202 6608, Cups, Blankets and Others. *202 6609, Food Shoppibg like Cola Bottles, Sour Cream and Onion Chips or Cans. *202 6610, Towels, Cloths, Soap or Containers. *202 6611, Nachos, Apple N Raspberry Codrial or Stationary. *202 6612, Basket, Electric Bed with Instructions or Paint. *202 6613, Aerobar, Birthday Cake or Packet of Candles. Current, 202 6614. ($#!+). *202 6615. (Ancient Sturcturez, Ruins or Buildings). ''2026616'' m2oo3ays2zv74vygl2l0fenl1znbjxe 277098 277097 2026-07-04T22:21:30Z ~2026-38095-20 57867 /* Test */ All done 277098 wikitext text/x-wiki {{Sandbox header/en}} <!-- Please leave this line alone! --> =Test= 704 - United States of America? Candy Crush Saga Wiki: Tasty Sugar Track Edits Currently Out Of Control (TST), Most Edits were made on 6/23, No New Episodes Will Be Released on 6/24, False?. 2:6 - 6:15, 130 days, (6:11+ to fill out). *6:16, 6:17, 6:18, 6:19, 6:20 (?) *6:21, 6:22, 6:23, 6:24, 6:25 (?) *6:26 (?) *6:27 (?) *6:28 (?) *6:29 (?) *6:30 (?) *7:1 (?) *7:2 (7:3) ''7:4'' *202 6525, Pot with Fork and Spoon, Bags with Sunglasses. *202 6526, Baskets, Tobacco Stuff or Socks. *202 6527, Food Shopping like Cola Bottles, Cans, Cordial and Others. *202 6528, Socks, Pairs of Shoes, Dressing Gowns. *202 6529, Towels, Cubes with Things. *202 6530, Cloths, Flowers Frisun or Soap. *202 6531, Food Shopping like Party Pies, Waters and Others. *202 6601, Pairs of Boots, Pillow or Podiatrist. *202 6602, Plates or Pans, Grated Cheese or Baskets. *202 6603, Forks, Pans and Other Kitchen Tools. *202 6604, Cups, Cordial Jug or Strawberry Milk. *202 6605, Food Shopping like Cans of Coca Cola, Waters, Cordials or Pile of Sauce. *202 6606, Purses, Lu Papers or Paper Towels. *202 6607, Candles, Statues or Pizza Boxes. *202 6608, Cups, Blankets and Others. *202 6609, Food Shoppibg like Cola Bottles, Sour Cream and Onion Chips or Cans. *202 6610, Towels, Cloths, Soap or Containers. *202 6611, Nachos, Apple N Raspberry Codrial or Stationary. *202 6612, Basket, Electric Bed with Instructions or Paint. *202 6613, Aerobar, Birthday Cake or Packet of Candles. Current, 202 6614. ($#!+). *202 6615. (Ancient Sturcturez, Ruins or Buildings). ''2026616'' kv1ami3b8i36zxcivl2oty1r0zwsh7c 277099 277098 2026-07-05T01:13:26Z MathXplore 46133 Restored revision 277094 by [[Special:Contributions/MathXplore|MathXplore]] ([[en:w:User:BrandonXLF/Restorer|Restorer]]) 277099 wikitext text/x-wiki {{Sandbox header/en}} <!-- Please leave this line alone! --> 4mce0etbkwwymu1wvbirplszszo71bq 0 72766 277100 2026-07-05T05:22:15Z ~2026-38238-96 57872 Created page with "<noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/{{subst::GLAM/Newsletter/Newsroom/Next}}/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:{{subst:REVISIONUSER}}|]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hac..." 277100 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:~2026-38238-96|~2026-38238-96]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons coordinated by Sanna Marttila in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his keynote presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a discussion connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The panel discussion hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of tech initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) together form Europe’s primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. Alongside this, the Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]], and [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] — offers a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralized system. They can publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] supports this by making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland’s IT Center for Science] represents a further opportunity: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. ???Mittens by Kerolaina Bula / [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]]??? The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> apxnagahfnzsl9aycbtvmu4a46g8jqy 277101 277100 2026-07-05T05:24:09Z ~2026-38238-96 57872 277101 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:~2026-38238-96|~2026-38238-96]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his keynote presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a discussion connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The panel discussion hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of tech initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) together form Europe’s primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. Alongside this, the Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]], and [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] — offers a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralized system. They can publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] supports this by making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland’s IT Center for Science] represents a further opportunity: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. ???Mittens by Kerolaina Bula / [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]]??? The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> 6qoi1fcojsxsxfb5t3t4be8tl958xh1 277102 277101 2026-07-05T05:24:35Z ~2026-38238-96 57872 277102 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:~2026-38238-96|~2026-38238-96]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his keynote presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a discussion connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The panel discussion hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of tech initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) together form Europe’s primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. Alongside this, the Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]], and [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] — offers a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralized system. They can publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] supports this by making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland’s IT Center for Science] represents a further opportunity: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. ???Mittens by Kerolaina Bula / [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]]??? The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> 20chnjf0j2g8ew8lh46d6lcgqxxvtyv 277103 277102 2026-07-05T06:13:43Z ~2026-38238-96 57872 277103 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:~2026-38238-96|~2026-38238-96]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his keynote presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a discussion connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The panel discussion hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] research consortium. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana] and the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], ECCCH forms Europe's primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. ???Mittens by Kerolaina Bula / [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]]??? The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> i6qekjqaj3lppi2clr5hbc51nzyfebo 277104 277103 2026-07-05T06:14:24Z Susannaanas 3945 277104 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his keynote presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a discussion connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The panel discussion hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] research consortium. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana] and the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], ECCCH forms Europe's primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. ???Mittens by Kerolaina Bula / [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]]??? The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> rkmrfifqpkf0khco6tw86dywtro1cdk 277105 277104 2026-07-05T06:16:34Z Susannaanas 3945 277105 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his keynote presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a discussion connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The panel discussion hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] research consortium. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana] and the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], ECCCH forms Europe's primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> fbxywvqghx4o5fawlme4unl4c7tm8hu 277106 277105 2026-07-05T06:18:16Z Susannaanas 3945 277106 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his keynote presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a discussion connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The panel discussion hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] research consortium. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana] and the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], ECCCH forms Europe's primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> o0iq7y7u4a3gfdekvcfsduau399j5pu 277107 277106 2026-07-05T06:23:05Z Susannaanas 3945 277107 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his keynote presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a discussion connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The panel discussion hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] research consortium. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana] and the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], ECCCH forms Europe's primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> ifumghxfr75oow3ib9ej0y06ins0f0g 277108 277107 2026-07-05T06:28:43Z Susannaanas 3945 277108 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his keynote presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a discussion connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The panel discussion hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] research consortium. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana] and the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], ECCCH forms Europe's primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> cv3e1gu1jy9hfr1orq6dgf0yiaitohm 277109 277108 2026-07-05T06:35:41Z Susannaanas 3945 277109 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Hanaholmen_Heritage|keynote]] presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Heritage_at_Risk|discussion]] connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The panel discussion hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] research consortium. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana] and the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], ECCCH forms Europe's primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> ly5hpr50cfj5etq59xv6sogdcrbdyil 277110 277109 2026-07-05T06:38:19Z Susannaanas 3945 277110 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Hanaholmen_Heritage|keynote]] presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Heritage_at_Risk|discussion]] connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Resilience|panel discussion]] hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] research consortium. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana] and the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], ECCCH forms Europe's primary infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> 2uxju98dsn6yr7v8echyqo73dsayk34 277111 277110 2026-07-05T08:08:00Z Susannaanas 3945 277111 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Hanaholmen_Heritage|keynote]] presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Heritage_at_Risk|discussion]] connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Resilience|panel discussion]] hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] EU project. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://eosc.eu/ European Open Science Cloud] (EOSC), ECCCH represents Europe's growing infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data — connecting heritage institutions, researchers, and communities across borders. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> 7ojwcpo68gbi8iwksiiypsjfdvwmxyz 277112 277111 2026-07-05T08:11:08Z Susannaanas 3945 277112 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Hanaholmen_Heritage|keynote]] presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Heritage_at_Risk|discussion]] connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Resilience|panel discussion]] hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] EU project. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://eosc.eu/ European Open Science Cloud] (EOSC), ECCCH represents Europe's growing infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data — connecting heritage institutions, researchers, and communities across borders. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Culture_Goal_2030_%E2%80%93_from_need_to_reality:_the_opportunities_and_practical_use_of_SDG_18_on_the_ground|hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18]]. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> scn1e75p3qk0eyrtouj63attm6m77jy 277113 277112 2026-07-05T08:34:53Z Susannaanas 3945 277113 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="250"> File:Brigitte Vézina - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Brigitte Vézina File:Matti Hakamäki - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Matti Hakamäki File:Sanna Marttila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Sanna Marttila </gallery> The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="250"> File:Mikael Hiltunen - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Mikael Hiltunen File:Jan Ainali - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Jan Ainali File:Renata Ávila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Renata Ávila </gallery> '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Hanaholmen_Heritage|keynote]] presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Heritage_at_Risk|discussion]] connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Resilience|panel discussion]] hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] EU project. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://eosc.eu/ European Open Science Cloud] (EOSC), ECCCH represents Europe's growing infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data — connecting heritage institutions, researchers, and communities across borders. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Culture_Goal_2030_%E2%80%93_from_need_to_reality:_the_opportunities_and_practical_use_of_SDG_18_on_the_ground|hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18]]. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> 6803r6970byjqodj8pygjq5hwj9kjbq 277114 277113 2026-07-05T08:35:25Z Susannaanas 3945 277114 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="200"> File:Brigitte Vézina - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Brigitte Vézina File:Matti Hakamäki - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Matti Hakamäki File:Sanna Marttila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Sanna Marttila </gallery> The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="200"> File:Mikael Hiltunen - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Mikael Hiltunen File:Jan Ainali - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Jan Ainali File:Renata Ávila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Renata Ávila </gallery> '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Hanaholmen_Heritage|keynote]] presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Heritage_at_Risk|discussion]] connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Resilience|panel discussion]] hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] EU project. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://eosc.eu/ European Open Science Cloud] (EOSC), ECCCH represents Europe's growing infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data — connecting heritage institutions, researchers, and communities across borders. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Culture_Goal_2030_%E2%80%93_from_need_to_reality:_the_opportunities_and_practical_use_of_SDG_18_on_the_ground|hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18]]. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> 032lxjq92y3k1edfe1nmxo6vp81efr8 277115 277114 2026-07-05T08:35:59Z Susannaanas 3945 277115 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="180"> File:Brigitte Vézina - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Brigitte Vézina File:Matti Hakamäki - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Matti Hakamäki File:Sanna Marttila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Sanna Marttila </gallery> The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="200"> File:Mikael Hiltunen - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Mikael Hiltunen File:Jan Ainali - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Jan Ainali File:Renata Ávila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Renata Ávila </gallery> '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Hanaholmen_Heritage|keynote]] presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Heritage_at_Risk|discussion]] connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Resilience|panel discussion]] hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] EU project. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://eosc.eu/ European Open Science Cloud] (EOSC), ECCCH represents Europe's growing infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data — connecting heritage institutions, researchers, and communities across borders. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Culture_Goal_2030_%E2%80%93_from_need_to_reality:_the_opportunities_and_practical_use_of_SDG_18_on_the_ground|hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18]]. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> bhq05slxu4x2qg1plvgvs2oub4ijjue 277116 277115 2026-07-05T08:36:27Z Susannaanas 3945 277116 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="180"> File:Brigitte Vézina - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Brigitte Vézina File:Matti Hakamäki - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Matti Hakamäki File:Sanna Marttila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Sanna Marttila </gallery> The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="180"> File:Mikael Hiltunen - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Mikael Hiltunen File:Jan Ainali - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Jan Ainali File:Renata Ávila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Renata Ávila </gallery> '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Hanaholmen_Heritage|keynote]] presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Heritage_at_Risk|discussion]] connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Resilience|panel discussion]] hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] EU project. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://eosc.eu/ European Open Science Cloud] (EOSC), ECCCH represents Europe's growing infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data — connecting heritage institutions, researchers, and communities across borders. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Culture_Goal_2030_%E2%80%93_from_need_to_reality:_the_opportunities_and_practical_use_of_SDG_18_on_the_ground|hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18]]. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> m8dokue2f85doaxklojr9cwlnf8ofn4 277117 277116 2026-07-05T08:46:21Z Susannaanas 3945 277117 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} <gallery mode="packed" heights="150"> File:Oulu Löyly letterhead.png </gallery> === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="180"> File:Brigitte Vézina - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Brigitte Vézina File:Matti Hakamäki - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Matti Hakamäki File:Sanna Marttila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Sanna Marttila </gallery> The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="180"> File:Mikael Hiltunen - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Mikael Hiltunen File:Jan Ainali - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Jan Ainali File:Renata Ávila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Renata Ávila </gallery> '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Hanaholmen_Heritage|keynote]] presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Heritage_at_Risk|discussion]] connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== The [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Resilience|panel discussion]] hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] EU project. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://eosc.eu/ European Open Science Cloud] (EOSC), ECCCH represents Europe's growing infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data — connecting heritage institutions, researchers, and communities across borders. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Culture_Goal_2030_%E2%80%93_from_need_to_reality:_the_opportunities_and_practical_use_of_SDG_18_on_the_ground|hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18]]. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> r6g090t4ii6w2ufdt4i8bo8mc8y198f 277118 277117 2026-07-05T10:21:05Z Susannaanas 3945 277118 wikitext text/x-wiki <noinclude>{{:GLAM/Newsletter/June 2026/Header}}</noinclude> {{GLAM/Newsletter/Title|Is the sauna still hot?|By [[User:Susannaanas|Susanna Ånäs]]}} <gallery mode="packed" heights="150"> File:Oulu Löyly letterhead.png </gallery> === Sauna & sun === [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly|Oulu Löyly]] was the newest iteration of open cultural heritage -related workshops AvoinGLAM has created. The work started with events organized together with Finnish heritage institutions in the series of Hack4FI – Hack Your Heritage hackathons in 2012–2018. Covid-19 stopped the 2020 Hack4FI only a day before the launch, giving rise instead to [https://hack4openglam.okf.fi/ Hack4OpenGLAM] online hackathons in the context of the Creative Commons Global Online Summits in 2020–2021. [[m:AI Sauna|AI Sauna]] in 2024 started the current sauna-related tradition. It gathered open knowledge advocates, Wikimedia developers, Finnish cultural heritage institutions and researchers to discuss the effect of AI on open cultural knowledge while also exploring the possibilities offered by it. Oulu Löyly tapped again to the physical power of sauna and sun to bring people together, this time asking how the heritage of even the smallest and most vulnerable communities can survive and remain accessible in the current technological and political climate. === What went in === These themes and topics nurtured our collaborative work: ==== Culture as a global public good ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="180"> File:Brigitte Vézina - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Brigitte Vézina File:Matti Hakamäki - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Matti Hakamäki File:Sanna Marttila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Sanna Marttila </gallery> The underpinning policy question was how culture can be established as a foundational dimension of society. What conditions are needed to ensure that access to cultural heritage, participation in cultural life, and the benefits of knowledge remain open, inclusive, and sustainably safeguarded over time? '''Brigitte Vézina''' ([[ccorg:|Creative Commons]]) focused her talk [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage|''Closing the gap in equitable access to heritage'']] on the barriers that prevent access to public domain heritage online — legal restrictions, paywalls, and cultural heritage laws being misused to extend copyright. She called for international policy action through UNESCO around the [https://openheritagestatement.org/ Open Heritage Statement], framing openness as a structural principle for cultural heritage governance. '''Matti Hakamäki''' ([https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/ Finnish Folk Music Institute]) in his presentation [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality|''The Culture Goal – From Necessity to Reality'']] on [https://culture2030goal.net/ ''Culture2030Goal''] made a complementary argument: that without a dedicated culture goal in the post-2030 UN sustainability framework, other goals on climate, poverty, and social equity cannot be fully achieved, because all of them require shifts in cultural behaviour to succeed. These perspectives were further grounded in the discussion hosted by '''Sanna Marttila''' ([https://en.itu.dk/ IT University of Copenhagen]), that drew out practical questions of access, participation, and the responsibilities of institutions, governments, and technology companies toward culture as a public good. ==== Heritage at risk ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="180"> File:Mikael Hiltunen - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Mikael Hiltunen File:Jan Ainali - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Jan Ainali File:Renata Ávila - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Renata Ávila </gallery> '''Mikael Hiltunen''' ([https://hanaholmen.fi/en Hanaholmen]) in his [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Hanaholmen_Heritage|keynote]] presented the [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/hanaholmen-heritage Hanaholmen Heritage program] and [https://hanaholmen.fi/en/events/hanaholmen-heritage-conference conference], a Nordic–Baltic policy initiative on cultural heritage preparedness in the face of conflict, hybrid threats, and geopolitical disruption. He argued for recognizing cultural heritage as critical infrastructure, expanding digitisation as both a preservation and counter-disinformation tool, and establishing a shared Nordic-Baltic cloud for storing heritage materials. The framing was extended by '''Jan Ainali''' ([https://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sweden]) in a [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Heritage_at_Risk|discussion]] connecting preparedness to open infrastructures and volunteer-driven documentation efforts such as [https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ Wiki Loves Monuments] — and raising the risk that digitization without open licensing simply creates new silos. The pre-event conversation chaired online by '''Renata Ávila''' ([https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation]) echoed similar concerns. It explored the [https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/knowledge-as-critical-digital-infrastructure-a-call-to-action-for-a-resilient-future-5e23968b170e ''Knowledge as Critical Digital Infrastructure''] initiative by Open Knowledge Foundation and [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]], and framed open knowledge and the digital commons as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience in the context of geopolitical instability, platform dependency, and AI-related risks. The discussion is further documented by Renata in [https://blog.okfn.org/2026/06/24/open-knowledge-and-critical-infrastructure-a-nordic-conversation/ ''Open Knowledge and Critical Infrastructure: a Nordic Conversation'']. ==== Sovereign governance of digital heritage ==== <gallery mode="packed" heights="200"> File:Connor Benedict - Oulu Löyly speaker.png|Connor Benedict File:Oulu Löyly Resilience panel.png|Tove Ørsted, Daniel Antal, Deepesha Burse, and Connor Benedict </gallery> The [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Resilience|panel discussion]] hosted by '''Connor Benedict''' ([[m:Content Partnerships Hub|Content Partnerships Hub]]) on community resilience opened with examples of heritage brought into the open: * '''Tove Ørsted''' ([https://www.aalto.fi/fi Aalto University]) introduced the university’s century of architectural measurement drawings, now digitised and used to rebuild burnt homes and churches. * '''Daniel Antal''' ([https://reprex.nl/ Reprex] / [[m:Wikimédia Magyarország|Wikimedia Hungary]]) presented his work connecting Livonian, Udmort, and other small Finno-Ugric communities to materials held about them in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian collections. * '''Deepesha Burse''' ([https://www.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland]) shared her work helping a Nigerian community document election violence on a Wikibase instance. The panel asked who decides what gets saved — often already determined without communities knowing, with materials sitting in outside institutions, described in foreign languages, and out of reach for those they concern. Visibility alone is not enough: data must be structured, usable, and governable by communities themselves. On AI, there was broad agreement that generative systems flatten cultural nuance and put under-represented knowledge at particular risk, making community control over reuse, backed by provenance and structured data, the most promising direction on offer. '''Sofie Veramme''' ([https://immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed]) was interviewed for the Oulu Löyly podcast by '''Niina Holappa''' ahead of the event. Her core argument is that data about communities must come from those communities, and that people need to understand what happens to their data online — including the ability to change, opt out, or remove it. She references the [https://www.fairdata.fi/tietoa-fairdatasta/fair-periaatteet/ FAIR] and [https://www.gida-global.org/careprinciples CARE] principles as practical frameworks for this, and highlights the tension between the static nature of data and the living, changing nature of intangible heritage. The podcast will be continued and published later this year. ==== Equipping the cultural commons ==== Oulu Löyly brought together a set of initiatives around a shared vision: that open, federated infrastructure could form the foundation of a genuine cultural commons, where even small and under-resourced communities can contribute their heritage materials on equal terms. The '''Open Culture Fair''' highlighted initiatives ranging from tech to artwork demonstrations and workshops. '''Jouni Tuominen''' ([http://helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki]) presented the [https://www.echoes-eccch.eu/ ECHOES European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage] (ECCCH) and the [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] EU project. Together with [https://www.europeana.eu/ Europeana], the [https://www.dataspace-culturalheritage.eu/en Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage], and the [https://eosc.eu/ European Open Science Cloud] (EOSC), ECCCH represents Europe's growing infrastructure for discovering, sharing, and collaborating around cultural heritage data — connecting heritage institutions, researchers, and communities across borders. '''Deepesha Burse''' (Wikimedia Deutschland) presented [https://wikiba.se/ Wikibase] and the broader Wikimedia ecosystem — [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [[d:Wikidata:Main_Page|Wikidata]], and [[c:Main_Page|Wikimedia Commons]] — a globally maintained open infrastructure for linked data, images, and knowledge, freely available for anyone to build upon. The [https://echolot-eccch.eu/ ECHOLOT] project brings these two worlds into direct connection through a federated model: institutions and communities can maintain their own interoperable knowledge bases while contributing to a shared network, without surrendering control or depending on a centralised system, and publish simultaneously to Europeana and Wikimedia platforms with provenance and rights metadata embedded. '''Jan Ainali''' offered a live demo of [https://www.commonsdb.org/ CommonsDB] for making the rights status of materials verifiable and trustworthy as they travel across systems. '''Johan Kylander''' presented Finland's national long-term digital preservation services at [https://csc.fi/en/ CSC — Finland's IT Center for Science]. Such infrastructure represents a further opportunity for communities: the computing capacity for sovereign, community-accessible hosting already exists, but bringing it within reach of smaller actors requires political willingness to fund it as shared public infrastructure. Beyond the infrastructure initiatives, the Open Culture Fair also featured a rich mix of projects, workshops, and demonstrations. Connor Benedict presented the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Content Partnerships Hub|Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub]]. '''Vertti Luostarinen''' showed [https://peacemachine.eu/ Layers in the Peace Machine], an immersive installation at Oulu City Hall using open-source AI and community memories. '''Lù Chén''' shared her work pluralising the [https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ Nokia Design Archive] through social remembering. '''Hanna Sipos''' facilitated a workshop on the valuation of AI art. '''Ewen Chardronnet''' presented [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery's] publications on art, science, and technology. '''Andrew Paterson''' hosted the first in-person meeting of the [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] network, and Matti Hakamäki conducted a [[m:Oulu_Löyly/Documentation#Culture_Goal_2030_%E2%80%93_from_need_to_reality:_the_opportunities_and_practical_use_of_SDG_18_on_the_ground|hands-on session on Culture as Sustainable Development Goal 18]]. === What came out === ==== Think & do with mind & body ==== The first day of the '''Open Culture Fair''' with talks, demos and workshops concluded at the [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], where more than ten temporary saunas along the Oulu River kept conversations going late into the bright summer evening. Next morning, the participants of the '''Think & Do''' organized in groups based on shared concerns about heritage at risk. Each group then worked to agree on a shared mission statement and agreed on the output. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Oral-to-Written|Oral-to-Written]] project addressed how fluent speakers of Saami and other under-resourced languages can contribute knowledge without needing to be fluent writers, surfacing language trauma, trust, and technical barriers as equally important as infrastructure. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#May the Source Be With You|May the Source Be With You]] group took up the reuse question directly, proposing transparency mechanisms — provenance, attribution, and bot identification — so that communities and institutions can trace how their openly shared materials are used, including by AI systems. Open cultural heritage depends on infrastructure that communities can actually use. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities|SPECS for Low-Tech Infra for Communities]] project examined how small community organizations can build and sustain archives with low-cost, low-threshold tools — mapping practical “slots” of infrastructure rather than imposing institutional systems. The [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#ORLA - Open Resource & Learning Assistant|ORLA — the Open Resource & Learning Assistant]] group created a self-assessment tool to help institutions identify their next steps toward open access. The working prototype was built using Claude. ORLA combines the self-assessment tool with an AI-powered bot that guides users toward relevant resources and can help generate a project plan for moving from closed to open collections. The self-assessment works independently without additional services, while the bot requires an API key. Both are available on GitHub. [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Open Latitudes|Open Latitudes]] is an ongoing one-year transdisciplinary network exploring solar-human relations across the Nordic and Baltic region, connected to the [https://liepaja2027.lv/en/ Liepāja 2027 European Capital of Culture] program. The network brings together organizations working with local archives, community art, open knowledge, and environmental themes — including [https://www.pikene.no/ Pikene på Brøn] from Norway, [https://imagininggodzilla.fi/ Imagining Godzilla] from Finland, [https://www.makery.info/en/ Makery] from France, and a knitwear design project by Kerolaina Bula from Latvia. The case example at Oulu Löyly asked how open knowledge and heritage can be part of contemporary and hybrid arts production, with each partner exploring connections to Wikimedia platforms and Creative Commons licensing. ==== North is OK ==== Oulu Löyly brought new energy to Nordic and Baltic collaboration. It marked the launch of [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North], a new initiative bringing together open knowledge organizations from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and Sweden to collaborate and share resources. The event also coincided with the [[m:Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026|Wikimedia Northern Europe Meeting 2026]], and brought the participants together for a joint webinar and meetup. To top it all off, at the opening of Oulu Löyly, Wikimedia Finland announced that Finnish Wikipedians had been honored with the [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410845/state-award-for-public-information-conferred-to-seven-contributors-to-community-relevant-information State Award for Public Information]. Congratulations, Finnish Wikipedia! ==== Our recommendations ==== We have pulled together a set of recommendations that are hosted in the original version of the [https://www.okf.fi/2026/06/28/is-the-sauna-still-hot/ blog post in the Open Knowledge Finland blog]. They encapsulate what was discussed but may be refined over time to better reflect all discussions. 🛡️ Treat open knowledge as critical infrastructure 📚 Support culture and heritage in order to nurture resilient societies 🤝 Build permanent cross-border cooperation 🕸️ Design federated, interoperable knowledge systems ☁️ Invest in sovereign, open cloud infrastructure 📝 Secure heritage custodians flexible reuse rights ⚖️ Strengthen culture's place in global policy ==== Documentation ==== All presentations and work is documented on the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page. It includes * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Talks|Talks]] and [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Discussions|discussions]] with links to presentations and recordings. The captions of the recordings have been proofread, so they can be watched in other languages as well. * [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Think & Do|Think & Do projects]] with links to slides, recordings of the presentation, project pages on wiki and additional resources. * The recordings are published on AvoinGLAM’s [https://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam YouTube channel]. Subscribe to stay updated! * Openly licensed [[m:Oulu Löyly/Documentation#Photos|photos]] may be added to the joint Google photo album or a [[c:Category:Oulu_Löyly_photos|Wikimedia Commons category]]. * The [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Pinboard|Pinboard]] and the podcast are works-in-progress. There was not enough time to create a representative collection of works highlighting these questions on the Pinboard or interview enough people to produce the podcast series. We intend to continue work with them outside the event documentation. They will be linked from the [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Oulu Löyly/Documentation|Documentation]] page when the time is right, and the podcast videos will feature on [http://www.youtube.com/@avoinglam AvoinGLAM’s YouTube page]. === Thank you! === Oulu Löyly was organized by [[m:Special:MyLanguage/AvoinGLAM|AvoinGLAM]] and [http://www.okf.fi/ Open Knowledge Finland] in partnership with [[ccorg:|Creative Commons]], [http://wikimedia.fi/ Wikimedia Finland], [http://wikimedia.ee/ Wikimedia Eesti], [http://wikimedia.se/ Wikimedia Sverige], [https://wikitongues.org/ Wikitongues], and [https://anaraskielaservi.fi/ Anarâškielâ servi]. Special shoutout to the team who made the event happen: Sophea, Juliaana, Niina, Joy, Liisi, Marja, Tea, Teemu, Tochi, Tove, and Susanna and the Oulu2026 volunteers! [https://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council-ministers The Nordic Council of Ministers] supports the [https://www.okf.fi/ok-north/ OK North] network initiative and its partners [http://www.opendenmark.dk/ OpenDenmark], [http://www.creativecommons.no/ Creative Commons Norway], [https://okee.ee/ Open Knowledge Estonia], [https://okfn.se/ Open Knowledge Sweden] ja [https://www.creativecommons.se/ Creative Commons Sweden] from the [https://www.nkk.org/en/demos/ Demos] program. Thank you for collaboration, [https://okfn.org/en/ Open Knowledge Foundation], [https://www.ouka.fi/en/oulu-central-library-saari Oulu Central Library Saari], [https://kesansauna.fi/saunafestival/ Oulu Sauna Festival], [https://kanresta.fi/en/restaurants/cafe-tarina/ Cafe Tarina], [https://uleaborg.luckan.fi/ Luckan Uleåborg] and [https://greensoul.fi/ Green Soul Catering]. The event was made possible with support from the [[foundationsite:|Wikimedia Foundation]]. Oulu Löyly was part of the official program of [https://oulu2026.eu/en/ Oulu2026 – Cultural Capital of Europe] and the [https://www.ica.org/international-archives-week/iaw2026/ International Archives Week]. <nowiki>#</nowiki>oululoyly #oululöyly #oulu2026 #IAW2026 <br /> <noinclude>{{GLAM/Newsletter/Comments|month=June 2026}}</noinclude> roewmmpqokn43pt0mfc3e5dwshn5mji