APE Licence
The descriptions on the Archives Hub are harvested by the Archives Portal Europe (APE), as a way of reaching new audiences and facilitating pan-European research.
APE has recently moved from an essentially closed licence to a more open approach, which will help with engaging in innovative work, such as working with the SNAC project (creating name records), DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) and Europeana, and also facilitate funded opportunities around things like linked data and topic mapping.
The aim is to make the data work harder, reach more people, and promote archives in a global context. An open data ethos is very much at the heart of innovation on the Web.
There are two parts to this process:
- Signing a Metadata Exchange Agreement (MEA) that asks APE content providers to agree to this approach.
- Specifying the licence for your own descriptions via a separate online form.
What is the Metadata Exchange Agreement?
- The MEA states that the default licence will be a CC-BY-SA, or Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike.
- It is an open licence that asks any users of the metadata to give appropriate credit and share under the same licence.
- It does not apply to digital content.
- By signing the MEA you are simply agreeing to this as the default licence, but you can still opt for a different licence for your own content (see below).
How do I sign the MEA?
APE and the Archives Hub have been sending out links for Archives Hub contributors to sign the MEA.
If you have not recevied one of these or want to check the status for your institution, please email the APE team
When you receive an email, it will include instructions for signing the MEA.
If you need to forward the MEA to someone else within your institution, please open it, go to the 'Other Actions' drop down menu in the top right, and select 'Forward'. You can then specify the new email, and confirm that the email signatory should sign the agreement.
Once you have signed the MEA, the document will automatically be forwarded to the APE Governing Board for signature. You will then receive an email with a PDF version of the signed document for your records.
How do I specify the licence for my content?
The MEA states that the default licence will be CC-BY-SA, but you can choose another licence if you wish to do so.
APE will ask you to specify this licence in a separate form that is sent out alongside the MEA.
If you are happy with the idea that your metadata is essentially open, we recommend going with the CC-BY-SA licence, but you can specify a different licence.