C Zarkali’s scientific contributions

Although studies have demonstrated that OpenGLAM provides numerous benefits to participant institutions, such as the dissemination of collections and increased sponsorship opportunities (Kapsalis, 2016; Kelly, 2013), the movement’s adoption remains limited. For museums and galleries, the fear of losing image fees, poses as one of the main barriers for participation (Kapsalis, 2016), since image licensing remains the most widely adopted method for monetising digitisation, despite the fact that its profitability has repeatedly been questioned (Tanner, 2004; Grosvenor, 2018). On-demand printing provides an alternative for generating revenue from digitised collections; however, print-on-demand solutions for museums appear to have stalled in the last decade, remaining almost exclusively a privilege of the well-resourced institutions. Α radically different implementation that takes advantage of emerging technologies (i.e. image recognition and progressive web applications) to provide a mobile print-on-demand solution for all museums with digitised collections is the Infinite Museum Store (IMS). In (Valeonti et al., 2018a) we presented the technical aspects and innovation features of IMS, as well as the results of a pilot study held at the State Museum of Contemporary Art (SMCA) in Thessaloniki, Greece, which demonstrated a significant potential for generating revenue from digitisation. Based on IMS, this paper examines mobile print-on-demand as an alternative solution for monetising digitisation, also exploring ways that smaller, not as well-resourced museums, can take advantage of on-demand printing to generate revenue from their digitised collections. With museums claiming that it is a "challenge . . . to keep on top of the large numbers of [image] requests” (Smith, 2009), developing alternative ways to monetise digitisation would not only allow more institutions to join OpenGLAM, but it would also contribute to improving their profitability.

Ever since the Rijksmuseum pioneered the OpenGLAM movement in 2011, releasing to the public domain images of artworks in its collection, several other museums have followed its lead, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Finnish National Gallery. Although studies have demonstrated that OpenGLAM provides numerous benefits to museums, ranging from the dissemination of their collections to increased sponsorship opportunities, the movement’s adoption remains limited. One of the main barriers for joining OpenGLAM is the “fear of losing image licensing revenue”, as participant museums have yet to invent new business models to recover lost image fees. Current efforts to address this challenge include Rijksmuseum’s Rijksstudio, a Print-on-Demand service for creating and purchasing products featuring the museum’s artworks. However, Rijksstudio is very similar to existing Print-on-Demand solutions for museums, which have barely evolved over the last decade and, subsequently, it shares their limitations (e.g. offering wall art products only). Α radically different approach that integrates Print-on-Demand automation with emerging technologies (i.e. image recognition and progressive web applications) to generate revenue from digitisation is the Infinite Museum Store (IMS). In [citation] we presented the technical aspects and innovation features of IMS, as well as the results of a pilot study held at the State Museum of Contemporary Art (SMCA) in Thessaloniki, Greece, which demonstrated its significant potential for generating revenue from digitised collections. This paper examines IMS from a business model perspective. It focuses on aspects such as viability, maintenance and long-term sustainability, and investigates ways technical innovation can be applied and utilised as a business model that generates revenue from digitisation, helping promote wider adoption of OpenGLAM.

In the last decade significant resources have been invested for the digitisation of the collections of a large number of museums and galleries worldwide. In Europe alone, 10 million EUR is annually invested in Europeana (Europeana 2014). However, as we gradually move on from “the start-up phase” of digitisation (Hughes 2004), revenue generation and sustainability must be considered (Hughes 2004). Even beyond digitisation, generating revenue through innovation and in particular “finding new business models to sustain funding” (Simon 2011) ranks amongst museums’ top challenges (Simon 2011). More importantly, despite the significant wealth of digitised assets museums now own, little has been done to investigate ways these institutions could financially benefit from their digitised collections. For art institutions in particular, this has been largely limited to the sale of image licenses, with the fear of losing this revenue posing as one of the key reasons art museums are reluctant to join the Open Content movement (Kapsalis 2016). This paper examines how recent technological advancements, such as image recognition and Print-on-Demand automation, can be utilised to take advantage of the wealth of digitised artworks museums and galleries have in their possession. A pilot study of the proposed solution at the State Museum of Contemporary Art (SMCA) in Thessaloniki, Greece, is covered and the findings are examined. Early feedback indicates that there is a significant potential in the utilisation of the aforementioned technologies for the monetisation of digitised collections. However, challenges such as blending the real-world experience with the digital experience, as well as flattening the learning curve of the technological solution for museum visitors, need to be addressed. Based on the pilot study at SMCA, this paper investigates how emerging technologies can be utilised to facilitate revenue generation for all museums and galleries with digitised collections.