Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Home Page
On January 5, 2009 the Max Plank Institute for the History of Science published a document titled Best Practices for Access to Images: Recommendations for Scholarly Use and Publishing. To my ears it reads far more like a thoughtful manifesto than a statement of best practices. But perhaps these two things are just a matter of degree.
This short document was the end product of a year long process initiated by the Institute, which “brought together a small group of scholars, curators, publishers, and other stakeholders” to reflect on the difficulties faced by scholars in obtaining access to the visual materials which are increasing essential to their work and yet soaring in price, due to a variety of factors including the “for-profit approach to digital cultural heritage,” the “fear of abuse and theft” of these works by curators, and by often improper reliance on claims of copyright by institutional owners of unique works.
As summarized by Christine von Oertzen in her article New Ways of Using Digital Images Recommendations Concerning the Free Use of Visual Media for Scholarly Purposes:
The document calls upon curators and scholars to enter into a new relationship to promote mutual trust and common interests. The aim of our compact is to address the pressing challenges raised by our digital present and future. We request that curators refrain from arbitrarily restricting the public domain. We further ask our colleagues in libraries, museums, and other repositories to accommodate the needs of scholars for freely accessible, high-resolution digital images. This request concerns not only print publications, but also new forms of electronic publishing. We exhort scholars in the humanities to respect the special custodial responsibility of museums, libraries, and other image repositories. In particular, we insist that careful attention to attribution must become part of each scholar’s contribution to a relationship based on trust and mutual benefit.
She makes the key point succinctly: [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Aristotle Project,
ARTstor,
Copyright,
cultrual heritage,
Cultural heritage,
Digital library,
ECHO,
Max Plank Institute for the History of Science,
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Open Access,
Public domain,
scholarly publication,
Victoria and Albert Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art Exterior CC2 erin.kkr
General Description
The digital image collection available on the website of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is a mixed bag. I refer, of course, not to the contents of the collection, but to the display and searchability of the subject matter of the works in the collection.
The Met’s description of the digital collection is as follows:
The Collection Database is a searchable database of artworks and related materials from the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An individual database record includes information about an object as well as images, when available. The Museum’s curators have selected several works of note within the collection Database as Highlights of the collection. Due to the extremely large number of objects in the Museum’s permanent collection, not all artworks are currently available in the collection Database. Furthermore, information contained in the database records is, in some cases, incomplete, and all information is subject to change according to ongoing research and new acquisitions.
This statement acknowledges that not all objects in the permanent collection are contained in the database, and that those which are do not always have associated images, BUT it would have been nice for the Met to give the user some sense of proportionality. According to the site there are 128,347 items in the online collection. But I can’t tell form this what portion of the permanent collection this represents, The only piece of further information I can easily find is that the Highlights contain only 1407 objects. Equally important I can’t tell how many of the 128,347 objects have associated images. I can say, unfortunately, that it appears that the vast majority of the items don’t. One can browse the works to see page after page of thumbnails stating “image not available” What a drag. It is not a bad thing that so many objects lack images; better to have access to the text record than to have nothing at all. It is a major oversight, however, that the interface does not allow [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
controlled vocabulary,
Giotto,
Image search,
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York City,
RFID,
rose,
Subject search
