Stichting Outpapier
Stichting Outpapier was founded in 2023 by Roberto Bourgonjen, who prior to that worked for over twenty years as an application developer for major institutional archives, including projects such as the Municipality of Amsterdam's Archive Bank and WatWasWaar, a geographic search system for historical data from all archives in the Netherlands. His name is well known within the Dutch archival community.
In 2020, he decided to cease all his commercial activities to focus entirely, together with a senior software developer, on the development of non-profit software for the preservation of cultural and intellectual heritage: heritage that encompasses not only the preservation of cultural works but also the protection of copyright and property rights.
Problem and solution
Whereas traditional, government-subsidized archives focus primarily on conservation and access to public collections, Outpapier also supports individual makers and private archives.
The reality is that for the vast majority of private and independent heritage, there is simply no place within existing archival institutions. Their collections often fall outside policy objectives or do not meet the formal requirements for inclusion, leaving valuable material dispersed, unseen, or vulnerable.
Moreover, institutional archives usually require that ownership of the material be transferred before it can be taken into custody. For many artists, collectors, or heirs, that is too big a step: they want to safeguard their work without having to relinquish it.
Outpapier offers this possibility. The foundation enables them to have collections professionally managed and digitized according to standardized methods, without transfer of ownership or copyright.
The Catalog software developed by Bourgonjen provides the technical basis for this: a platform with which collections of varying sizes can be professionally described, structured, and stored sustainably, and, if desired, made digitally accessible.
In combination with the Bitcash micro-payment system, not only is uncontrolled access to valuable material prevented, but the costs of digitization and management are fairly borne by the genuinely interested public — through small, transparent payments based on usage.
This creates a model in which an archive can sustain itself without structural subsidies or external funding: as long as there is public interest, the system continues to operate autonomously — like a cultural perpetual motion machine in which interest and preservation keep each other in balance.
Mission
Outpapier is committed to preserving both paper and digitally born collections.
The foundation aims to form a bridge between major institutional archives and private collectors and creatives — photographers, videographers, composers, and musicians — and offer them a plug-and-play infrastructure in which their collections can remain sustainably accessible, safe, findable, simple, and affordable, while preserving intellectual property.
Software
The foundation provides colocation services for an integrated software platform consisting of collaborating components. It currently does not operate this software itself, this is still done by Roberto Bourgonjen in phase 1 of the platform release. It only facilitates colocation services.
- Catalog — software for collection management, email, chat, project management, and digital publishing;
- Bitcash™ — a micropayment system for pay-per-view access to images, videos, and audio;
- Warden — software for the electronic surveillance and monitoring of physical storage and server rooms.
Together, these components form a coherent solution for the sustainable preservation and controlled access to cultural heritage and intellectual property.
Core collection
The foundation currently focuses primarily on the collection of its founder, consisting of scientific books, newspapers, and magazines dating from 1750, in the languages Dutch, English, French, Russian, and German.
A large portion of this has now been digitized and is searchable, and will be made public in stages over the coming years. This includes exclusive material that is currently not available online anywhere, let alone searchable, and which is expected to attract considerable interest.
Websites
The first website realized using the Catalog-Publisher module is that of Uri Eugenio, a dancer and choreographer in Amsterdam. This site, launched in 2024, contains an extensive collection of photo and video material, some of which are only available through Bitcash micropayments.
Roberto.me is a personal archive of the life and work of the founder, Roberto Bourgonjen. It brings together photographs, writings, films, music, documents, sketches, notebooks, and software projects from different periods. It traces the development of his interests in image-making, publishing, technology, authorship, and preservation, while also documenting the circumstances, experiments, and environments in which that work emerged. All visual, audio, and video material is available through paid access; the proceeds support Stichting Outpapier, which is responsible for the preservation and presentation of his archive.
get.info is an ongoing project dedicated to the preservation and digitization of historical encyclopedias from around the world, making them searchable as a living archive of recorded knowledge.
The further development of the software platform by Bourgonjen himself and his senior developer, who has been working for him full-time since 2011, is not at the expense of the foundation, but is financed entirely by Bourgonjen from private funds.
NO ownership
n principle, Stichting Outpapier does not acquire ownership of the material it preserves or digitizes. The foundation's repository is intended solely as a secure storage place for cultural heritage that remains in the hands of the original owner or creator. The transfer of material to the repository does not entail a transfer of ownership or copyright, nor an implicit license for public use.
The owner — for example, an artist, photographer, or collector — retains full control over the collection in all cases and decides who is granted access and under what conditions.
The foundation uses this model to protect heritage without owning it. It sees it as its task to keep the material safely, verifiably, and responsibly accessible until the moment the owner or their heirs decide to transfer it to an institutional archive.
Through this system, ownership remains in private hands, but the cultural and intellectual heritage is meanwhile secured, documented, and prepared for future preservation.
Vision for the future
As curator of its founder's legacy — which includes the software developed by him — the foundation not only preserves collections but also watches over the ideas, knowledge, and tools with which those collections are managed and made accessible.
In doing so, Outpapier aims to be a catalyst: the first organization in the world to demonstrate how cultural and intellectual heritage can be responsibly managed and shared — with an ease, depth, and efficiency that previously seemed impossible.
By serving as an example, the foundation hopes to inspire a global network of organizations and creatives that uses the software developed by Bourgonjen as a common foundation for preserving, protecting, and sharing cultural and intellectual heritage worldwide.
Catalog.ID
Catalog.ID is a privacy-first identity system that allows users to manage, share, and verify personal data without this data ever being visible to the server. All claims are encrypted on the user's device. Verification takes place via a physically separated validation module. Read the Catalog.ID Whitepaper for the full technical description.
Catalog Provenance Registry
CPR is a registration service for digital proofs of origin. Creators and archives can record cryptographically signed claims about digital files — such as authorship, timestamp, and file integrity — with independent anchoring on the XRP Ledger. Read the CPR Whitepaper for the full technical description.
Bitcash®
Bitcash is the prepaid micro-payment system within the Catalog ecosystem. Users acquire BIT and use it to pay per use for access to digital services and content — such as storage, streaming, provenance registration, and identity services. BIT is not a cryptocurrency or investment product, but a prepaid payment method similar to a value card. Read the Bitcash Whitepaper for the full description. Or visit the Bitcash website at bit.cash which will also explain how to install the Bitcash Wallet Manager. At this phase of the platform, BIT is not sold, but only freely given away.
Contact
For questions regarding collaboration, licenses, or publication initiatives, please contact the foundation at the address below.
Stichting Outpapier
Hudsonstraat 47-H
1057RX Amsterdam
Telephone: +31 20 4894849
E-mail: [email protected]
KvK: 89826825
Date of Establishment: April 4 april 2023
BTW nr: NL865124097B01
DUNS: 494666468
Bank: NL80ABNA0121255425
BIC: ABNANL2A