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Subject: Creative Commons Jurisdiction Teams in Sub-Saharan Africa

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  • From: Catherine Ngugi <catherine.ngugi AT gmail.com>
  • To: "'Abbas Mahmood'" <abbasjnr AT hotmail.com>, <ccafrica AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ccAfrica] Kenya News Agency Digitization Report
  • Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:36:49 +0300

Excellent new! Thanks for the update Abbas. Let us know how we can support this important initiative.

 

Regards,

 

Catherine N Ngugi |   Project Director |   OER Africa

OER Africa logo.jpg

  A Saide initiative

 

From: ccafrica-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:ccafrica-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Abbas Mahmood
Sent: 21 August 2012 11:12
To: ccafrica AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [ccAfrica] Kenya News Agency Digitization Report

 

Report: Digitization of the Kenya News Agency Archive 
Prepared by: Abbas Mahmood
Prepared for: Wikimedia Kenya & the CC Africa Community
Date: August 21, 2012

Background & Context 

 

Alex Gakuru and I were invited to join a digitization working group created by the Kenya News Agency & the Kenya ICT Board that was aimed at laying a strategy for the digitization of KNA's content. Alex was invited on his capacity as the CC Africa Regional Coordinator, and I was invited in my capacity as a Wikipedia contributor.

 

In late July, the working group had our first meeting, and (Alex and) my main goals were to 1) talk about non-commercial use of content, 2) use the Aljazeera Creative Commons Repository as a case study, and 3) learn from other stakeholders that were involved.

 

KNA has a repository of (mainly) photos (6,000+) related to Kenya’s history and culture dating back to the pre-colonial era. But due to budgetary constraints, the photos are stored in non-ideal conditions and their risk of damage or deterioration is therefore high. Moreover, their content is currently underutilised due the difficulty in retrieving the photos and lack of public awareness.


The working group has around 20 members with folks coming from different backgrounds: studio producers, film makers, Kenya National Archives staff, AMREF Library staff, Bank of Africa staff, Creative Commons staff, freelance photojournalists, Ministry of Information & Communication staff, Kenya ICT Board staff and myself. 

Summary

 

Various talks and presentations were made by different people, including Alex Gakuru, who talked about  Creative Commons and showed a video of the Aljazeera CC Repository.


It was agreed that one of the potential customers of this project will be Wikipedia; and that some of the content will be donated to Wikimedia under a free licence. (Note that the digitized repository will be used for commercial purposes, but we’ll get a small content donation for purposes of publicity and awareness).

Also, some of the photos that KNA has are caption-less or lack the relevant metadata. It was suggested that we(the working group) explore the use of online collaboration (such as wikis or social media) to engage with the public and inquire about photos which don’t have known descriptions. We therefore expect citizen engagement to help us in identifying some of the photos.

[We discussed lots of other issues which I have intentionally omitted since 1) the final report is not out yet; and 2) it’s not relevant to you guys.] 

 

Followup Meeting

 

Last week but one, we had a followup meeting with the Permanent Secretary of Information & Communication -- Dr Bitange Ndemo -- to recap what the working group had discussed and to get final approval. The outcome was met with a positive response, most notably with Dr. Ndemo categorically appreciating Alex and the involvement of CC in this project. 

 

[Personally, I think that this is a really good thing -- for the government to acknowledge CC, since most people, let alone government, don't know what the hell creative commons is. We should therefore expect positive involvement/increased awareness as a result of this.]

 

Conclusion

We have a strict timeline, and AKAIK, the whole Archive is supposed to be digitized by December 2012. More details about the next steps will be shared, as soon as I get them.

 

Thanks,

Abbas.




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