Dear Perian: Good question. At Cleveland our philosophy, for the past decade, has been that most people would prefer to see an image than no image, but it takes a long time to photograph 30,000 objects in the studio. So if we do not have an approved studio image, but we do have an image, we tag the photograph as a reference image with the following message:
The Cleveland Museum of Art recognises that our web visitors greatly value being able to see an image of works in our collections. In order to provide such images in as many cases as possible, we are now displaying secondary quality images where no other image is available. Such images, and images that have not yet been reviewed, are marked as "Reference Images". As new photography is obtained, these images will be replaced. Here is an example of an object with a reference image: http://www.clevelandart.org/explore/work.asp?recordkeywordID=967&recNo=0 Holly M. Witchey, Ph.D. Director of New Media Initiatives The Cleveland Museum of Art 11150 East Blvd. Cleveland, Ohio 44106 Telephone: 216-707-2653 Email: hwitchey at clevelandart.org ________________________________________ From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Perian Sully [psu...@magnes.org] Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 6:09 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv 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/
