Dear All I write this at the end of a series of complaints from myself and correspondence with RAMM regarding getting access to a nice collection of Bobbins in the RAMM Exeter (Museum) I have failed in my bid to get free academic access to the collection, so I am giving up.
Just to put on record about the collection. There are just over 100 bobbins dated from 1776 to late 1800s. >From an unofficial source, I would say there are about 10 to 12 bobbin of particular interest to collectors. >From my point of view, the inclusion of 3 (perhaps 4) ships is a great pity that I can't access them. The special bobbins include naive decorations, mermaids, ships, birds and one particularly fine decorator who has a lot of bobbin represented in this collection. My problem is that, as a time when many museums around the world are removing copyright from their collections due to the ethics of using gifted items for income and charging copyright fees for items well out of copyright (i.e. 1776) They charge for 30 minutes viewing and then have an hourly charge from thence on. I estimated for me to photograph the set "Myself" (well via a proxy) would cost more than one hundred UK Pounds and possibly 150 pounds. I have dealt with probably 6 or so UK museums re bobbins in the past and have never been charged by them and they have even photographed the bobbins for me. One other thing is that they control the use of the images you might take. They claim that my flattening of an image is "Manipulation". It is not, I just print say 5 images very close together, then the bobbin looks flat. I rarely if ever make any changes to an image. If anyone is interested in this issue I can tell you that there a lot of articles on the web regarding the museum and copyright ethics. I think their policy of restricting and charging the people of Devon for access to their objects of interest to their local history and then refusing my offer of voluntarily writing about them and informing the Devon people (Possibly the world!) of the wonderful things they have locked away is a breach of their educational requirements in favour of making money. Brian - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
