Patrick Durusau wrote: > I can understand it would be a burden if the museum accepted objects > with widely varying permissions from the owners for display but is > that the case with the type of scholarly material I pointed to in my > first post? (I do not know if papyri or cuneiform tablets are often > deposited with such restrictions or not so that really is a question > on my part.)
It can be -- what the object is often has no bearing on the restrictions of its use. Who determines the restrictions is the owner of the object. > In the case I posited the images were already made so the > question was why would the museum restrict further distribution of the > images? Who owns the rights to the photograph? Why were the photographs taken? They may have been taken only for insurance use or for internal scholarly use. > I think your point is well taken and perhaps an argument for > museums to simply refuse to accept items with restrictions that limit > their scholarly use. That would be difficult for any single museum but > if as a group museums can refuse to traffic in looted artifacts they > could certainly as a group refuse to accept items with unreasonable > restrictions on academic use. Historically, restricting photography and imaging has been considered reasonable. No museum is going to pass on something they really want because the owner doesn't want images flying all over the world. re: Carolyn Rissanen's comment > > I am intrigued by the use of the word "freely" - I'm wondering > > whether most scholars are prepared to pay the direct costs of > > providing images, copyright issues notwithstanding. In our > > institution we have no photographer on staff, so must hire one for > > new photography requests. We are also debating how much of our > > staff's time we can reasonably ask for reimbursement for: the time > > spent pulling objects and replacing them in storage. > > Another valid point from the standpoint of museum administration but > not really applicable to scholars who have already made the images or > who are willing to make the images themselves. If individual scholars > agree to undertake all the expenses of photography/scanning how is the > museum's expenses increased over simply pulling the objects for visual > inspection? Someone has to actually pull the object (time is money). Someone has to sit with the scholar/photographer while the work is being done. Space has to be found for the scholar/photographer to work. It all takes time and effort. > Or perhaps more on my original point, how do those > expenses expenses justify prohibiting the sharing of images that might > reduce the need to pull the original items? (I appreciate you noticing > the word "freely." It does carry connotations that I do not share in > terms of who bears the expense of reproduction (the scholar) in such > cases.) As many people have pointed out, the expenses of making the image are only part of the issue. There are copyright and ownership issues involved as well, which will vary from object to object and institution to institution. Regarding the generation of income from licensing and selling photographs, it may not generate a huge income, but for many institutions, *any* additional income is welcome and useful. If that income is lost, it's lost. Five thousand dollars a year in sales and fees is a lot of money if you have to buy a refrigerator to stablize some early photographic negatives. Another post illustrated how easily control is lost of an image, how it goes from purely academic use to winding up on a commercial company's CD-Rom. When that happens, the institution receives not one penny and it loses income to that commercial company. I would agree, sometimes there are restrictions for no good reason. But there are often good reasons for restrictions. Julie Beamer Database Manager and Web Administrator Virginia Historical Society (804) 342-9646 email: [email protected] web: www.vahistorical.org
