Co-chairs: Susan Bruning (Southern Methodist University) & Ian Lilley (University of Queensland)
The Sourcebook and Community Toolkit Working Group aims to connect community needs and interests with information and tools to: build understanding about the scope and limitations of intellectual property laws; protect intellectual property in cultural heritage; and promote fair and culturally appropriate uses of intellectual property. The processes and products of this working group are intended to be “of, by, and for” descendant communities and others concerned with the loss and misappropriation of cultural heritage. Group governance and decision-making is transparent and inclusive, and outcomes are responsive to case study and community interests and needs. Membership is open to all interested and willing to work together to create and mobilize information and tools for communities. Communications and products are designed to be free of academic jargon, and accessible to a broad range of publics. A starting definition of “publics” or “communities” is that they are shared by links to places, objects, or intangibles. Thus, users will identify the issues we will address through consultation with project partners and other Working Groups. Our goals are to obtain diverse, particular, profound, and broadly useful perspectives and concerns; to be sensitive and responsive to community interests, perspectives and needs; and to produce a useful and valuable Sourcebook and Community Toolkit for descendant communities and others.
Selected Activities and Output:
• An extensive annotated literature review of research and documents on the topic of IP and Cultural Heritage located on partner and stakeholder websites (particularly of our partner, the World Intellectual Property Organization);
• A glossary of relevant terms and acronyms explicitly intended for use in communicating with non-academic audiences;
• An initial list of “Frequently Asked Questions” (FAQs) communities may wish to address when tackling issues related to IP and cultural heritage; and
• Steering Committee members John Welch, Julie Hollowell and Kelly Bannister developed a questionnaire for participants in the IPinCH project that will help to identify useful tools and resources on IP and heritage issues that IPinCH can provide to participants and stakeholders, and which is now being more fully developed.
