The IMLS-Sponsored National Forum

Data Speculations is a National Forum sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, hosted by Temple University and Texas A&M University. This National Forum will bring together specialists in the fields of law, libraries, and literature to explore the future of curating copyrighted cultural collections as data.

Data Speculations will involve a series of convenings and projects that take place over the 2025 year, with the opening events January 13-16. The Project Team is actively presenting works-in-progress at related conferences. See our Events page for more information.

The Future of Copyrighted Collections as Data

Through the National Forum and related events, we hope to foster a community of practice to develop a proof-of-concept legal framework in support of libraries working with copyrighted collections. For this reason, Data Speculations seeks to bring into conversation specialists in digital humanities research, library data services, copyright, and information policy virtually to analyze library practices in computational research on copyrighted contemporary culture materials.

Libraries and archives can increasingly enable teachers, scholars, and journalists to explore cultural heritage collections in computational form, allowing users to mine, map, analyze, and visualize these materials at scale. However, legal barriers to working with copyrighted data at scale have prevented many institutions from growing these text and data mining programs. Data Speculations will inform next-stage partnerships, protocols, tools, and best practice guidance and will be foundational to removing access barriers for sharing copyrighted collections.

For more information on the IMLS grant, see the IMLS award page.

To learn more about the Data Speculations and the details of the National Forum, visit our About page.