Hi Perian, We're prettty much on the pro side of this at the Brooklyn Museum.
We've done some supervised storeroom photography projects -- photography interns teamed up with curators and provided with a simple seamless set, lights, and a tripod and with our photographers as technical backup. We consider those shots reference quality and send them to the Web. Like other people who respond, we feel that (almost) any image is better than none. And we've found that having an image online is a definite benefit for our R&R activities--they see it, they want to buy it, we get funds (from for-profit orgs) to support more photography. The issue of hand-held, point and shoot images taken by curatorial staff over the pre-DAMS years is one we haven't fully grappled with yet, primarily because they've just been loaded into TMS over the years (small, highly compressed) and are not yet in our DAMS. I'm pretty sure that as we try to gather the existing masters from disks, CDs, DVDs, and who-knows-where on the network that we'll find that some are completely acceptable and others are not -- inadequate lighting being the primary flaw. We've got three "approved uses" in the DAMS -- publication quality, reference quality, and in-house use only. As we gather and load the images, we'll assign one of those. The first two port to the website automatically, the last only goes to TMS. Curators also have the last word on images -- if they think one is beyond the pale (too old, pre-conservation, damaged, etc.), we suppress it. Deb Wythe Brooklyn Museum deborahwythe at hotmail.com > Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:09:40 -0700 > From: psully at magnes.org > To: mcn-l at mcn.edu > Subject: [MCN-L] inventory photos or no? > > Hi all: > > > > In the interest of streamlining our collections inventory (down from 3-4 > years to 6 months - EEK!), we're cutting back on taking more formal > studio shots of objects and simply doing brief snapshots. > > > > We're also just about to release our database online, and we only have > about 2000 images available of the museum objects (out of 14,000 records > and growing). I'm trying to decide if I should release these low-quality > snapshots to the public or not. > > > > Pros: > > Image assets are always good > > Helps researchers and us > > We already have crappy photos publically available, so this wouldn't > change much > > > > Cons: > > Potential for rights & reproduction requests for objects safely tucked > in a box and irretrievable > > Not the best photos in the world and many are useless for research use > (no marks, inscriptions, etc., except in the description) > > > > I'm leaning toward the pros outweighing the cons, but I'm wondering if > someone else has dealt with this issue and how? Is it better to just > leave them off the site altogether? > > > > Thanks in advance, > > > > Perian Sully > > Collections Information Manager > > Web Programs Strategist > > The Magnes > > 2911 Russell St. > > Berkeley, CA 94705 > > Work: 510-549-6950 x 357 > > Fax: 510-849-3673 > > http://www.magnes.org > > http://www.musematic.org > > http://www.mediaandtechnology.org > > > > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer > Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > > The MCN-L archives can be found at: > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/ _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live? SkyDrive?: Store, access, and share your photos. See how. http://windowslive.com/Online/SkyDrive?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_CS_SD_photos_072009
