Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
I believe something people need to understand is the scope of putting things online. I have been doing this for 14 years. I have photographed thousands of items. Over 20,000 photos of actual costumes are just waiting to go online. I photograph at a high resolution with detailed photos of costumes overhead, back side, inside, extreme close-up of embellishments, etc. Anyone that have seen or had me photograph them at Costume-Con know how many detailed photos that I take. I have a massive collection to go online from a university's fashion that I photographed and documented in 2006-2007. It took me a year to photograph and document their collection. Since them I have purchased a large collection in-house of 20th Century hats, yet to be photographed. On top of this, I have hundreds of period publications and antique photographs waiting to go online. Since I am a staff of one, I count on volunteers to help with putting items online. Since the economy has been so poor, my volunteers have had little time to help. I am down to three volunteers who type articles when they have spare time. My webpage coders and graphics people are no longer available. So I am slowly putting things online by myself. I would love to get more volunteers. If you are interested, please email me privately. As for viewing high resolution photos online, I use the software Zoomify that allows you to zoom in really close. I know the McCord Museum uses it. It doesn't cost that much and is simple to use. The software makes it very hard for someone to steal the images. Each image can be divided in hundreds of pieces. I haven't had a problem with someone stealing these images so far. I have worked at a museum, a university, and been at my business a long time in the internet world. We all want to education people on what we have available. But it all comes down to money and man power. There was a time when my business depended solely on subscribers and our students. But as the economy shifted, advertisers have been keeping me afloat. But that money is not enough to actually hire people. Penny Ladnier, Owner, The Costume Gallery Websites www.costumegallery.com 11 websites of costume, fashion and textile history. ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
Astrida: I must, unfortunately, agree with you. We haven't had time or funding to put all of our existing objects on the web, much less hi-res ones for detail. It is a sad commentary on what we would like to do for ourselves and the public and what is possible. Additionally, there are some museums that are unwilling to put up details and hi-res photos up because of copyright issues. On 11/11/10 4:52 PM, Schaeffer, Astrida astrida.schaef...@unh.edu wrote: Then I think one of the most useful things a museum could do would be lots of photos and get some darned closeups. The pictures I looked at on the from the link you posted for the Smithsonian didn't have anything that wasn't full length - no details at all. OTOH, some pictures I've seen from the VA get so close I could chart the knit or beaded designs. I really appreciate that kind of information online since it's unlikely I'll ever get to go to the museum. I work for a museum. We have a grand total of 4 staff. We all wear so many hats we can't keep track of them all. Personally, I'm responsible for the collection, the exhibitions, all museum security, the desktop publishing, supervising student fellows and work-studies, managing the climate control system, the museum shop, and more. I'd LOVE to have that level of detail for everything in the collection even for our own purposes let alone for interested visitors, but it's neither a time nor financial possibility at the moment... Astrida *** Astrida Schaeffer, Exhibitions and Collections Manager Museum of Art, University of New Hampshire Paul Creative Arts Center 30 Academic Way Durham, NH 03824-3538 603-862-0310 FAX: 603-862-2191 www.unh.edu/moa *** ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
In a message dated 11/12/2010 7:56:27 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, manordto...@stthomas.edu writes: Additionally, there are some museums that are unwilling to put up details and hi-res photos up because of copyright issues. And I guess that suggests something else WE can do to help museums--only use any images we acquire, whether on-line or in person, in an ethical way. I don't want to start the whole discussion about intellectual property again, but I hope people will remember that, just because something is posted on a website, doesn't mean one can take it and use it any way one wants to. But, on the flip side, I found when I was writing my book that some museums seem to view publication rights as a cash cow and are charging exorbitant rates. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect them to give them away, and I know funding is tight (I also work at a museum), but a couple--and absolutely perfect examples--were just into the stratosphere, and I didn't have the budget for them. I know photography costs money, too, but if the image already exists, I wish the rights could be more reasonable. Ann Wass ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
And publishers cannot afford to support images for books either. The Swede are developing a process for inexpensive publication photos. This might be helpful there, at least. On 11/12/10 7:08 AM, annbw...@aol.com annbw...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 11/12/2010 7:56:27 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, manordto...@stthomas.edu writes: Additionally, there are some museums that are unwilling to put up details and hi-res photos up because of copyright issues. And I guess that suggests something else WE can do to help museums--only use any images we acquire, whether on-line or in person, in an ethical way. I don't want to start the whole discussion about intellectual property again, but I hope people will remember that, just because something is posted on a website, doesn't mean one can take it and use it any way one wants to. But, on the flip side, I found when I was writing my book that some museums seem to view publication rights as a cash cow and are charging exorbitant rates. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect them to give them away, and I know funding is tight (I also work at a museum), but a couple--and absolutely perfect examples--were just into the stratosphere, and I didn't have the budget for them. I know photography costs money, too, but if the image already exists, I wish the rights could be more reasonable. Ann Wass ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
On 11/12/2010 4:55 AM, Nordtorp-Madson, Michelle A. wrote : Snip Additionally, there are some museums that are unwilling to put up details and hi-res photos up because of copyright issues. Ah the dread Copyright issue and who actually owns historic items, particularly those in publicly funded institutions (those that are completely privately funded are a different story - don't Hit Me!). Along with the who owns Human History issue. There is going to have to be some kind of accommodation made so that both parties come out of this well. Think of all the books that were lost when the Danube flooded and destroyed them. The items we know only from a few black and white photos because war washed across the museums/castles/places where they were kept and they are forever gone and heartbreaking for everyone but should be most for those whose entire lives are devoted to keeping such safe and, hopefully available, to scholars. The items that are being so desperately protected for their copyright value are simply candles in the wind. Ask the museums in San Francisco about the work they are doing getting their collections up since they Know how vulnerable they are. Here in Oregon we never thought of anything much. Even the big Volcano going off about 20 years ago didn't strike at real populated areas (watch out Seattle though!). However that little shake a few years back put a large library of medieval manuscripts in severe danger as part of the Abbey they are stored, and generously open to the public with request, was severely damaged by a fault we didn't quite realize was there. Personnel are a problem, but Google and at one time Micro Soft had done a lot to solve the digitization problem to get things up on the web for all of us and EEBO for those who can pay for it. Possibly something similar could be done for items like paintings and other such items could be worked out? More available knowledge can only be a blessing. Now we have to see how we can make that a blessing for both the holders of the original items and those who want to see but not necessarily touch :-) We need a win/win situation for both because if the originals aren't carefully cared for we all lose, if they aren't known to exist or aren't available except to a very few, many of us lose. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, Babylon 5, Sheridan, InfectionThe same applies to natural disaster anywhere on the planet at one time or another. It will happen and it will take all that lovely copyright material with it and not care at all. Check with the Babylonians to see how much of their culture survived. Wanda ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
Copyright may turn out not to be the wave of the future. I hope there is a better way found for all of us, Museums and private citizens. I fail to see any other mechanism than copyright (the control over replication and sale of the work) for creators and producers of works to get paid for the very large amounts of time and money they put into them. It is just not possible to do all this work free--or even for any cost reduction beyond a couple of dollars per item. Loss leaders and experiments to sell other things and services than the item being given away, don't count. I've been a self-publisher since 1993. In all this time, although I've seen tons of people on the net advising each other to rip off copyrighted works (including mine), and complaining about prices, and advancing entitlement arguments (often positively screaming about their entitlement), I have yet to see a single person send me a donation. (Admittedly I have asked for none and expect none.) Nor have I often seen the idea that creators of works deserve fair payment advanced by people who are not themselves creators of works or involved in their production in some way. As for Google, they do plan to charge the public for the works whose copyrights they ripped off, providing they get away with ripping them off in the first place. They didn't spend millions of dollars scanning millions of books out of altrusim. Judge Chin is still pondering the proposed Settlement, and it will probably be appealed for years whether he accepts or rejects it--though I hope he does. I must say, I find the attitude of both the public and of big businesses like Google, that they have a divine right to use my work and manipulate my finances in any and every way they see fit, so contemptuous, degrading, and hostile that I am seriously considering getting out of this business. Fran Lavolta Press www.lavoltapress.com ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
Judge Chin is still pondering the proposed Settlement, and it will probably be appealed for years whether he accepts or rejects it--though I hope he does. Reject it, I mean. You need to realize that when someone scans your work (after you have explicitly entered it a do not scan for your library project database Google put up when the suit was filed), asserts the right to distribute and sell it however they want, whether you agree to the Settlement or not (I opted out, but the Settlement explicitly says Google does not agree to refrain from selling works by copyright holders who opted out), destroying your other markets for it, you can basically kiss off most of your revenues. Of course, Google will make money off the seized works no matter what. Fran ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
On Nov 10, 2010, at 1:04 PM, Julie wrote: One would be to know what they have and accurately and fully describe it. I see a lot of errors describing knit vs. crochet vs. other techniques. Then I think one of the most useful things a museum could do would be lots of photos and get some darned closeups. The pictures I looked at on the from the link you posted for the Smithsonian didn't have anything that wasn't full length - no details at all. OTOH, some pictures I've seen from the VA get so close I could chart the knit or beaded designs. I really appreciate that kind of information online since it's unlikely I'll ever get to go to the museum. Julie in Ramona Both of these, alas, pretty much boil down to questions of money. Museums are increasingly understaffed, and often can't spare the time for their curators to do much research on what something really is and how it should be labeled. Also, it means that the few curators they can hire often don't cover the full range of expertise they need for the things they have -- almost no fine arts museums have jewelry curators, for instance. A famous example from the Met has a curator of sculpture writing about a painting and getting the clothing description hilariously wrong because he doesn't understand surcotes. (Mirror of the Medieval World, painting of St. Clare of Assisi) Writing and correcting the catalog descriptions (either in the museum, online or both) is also time-consuming. Online photos are expensive both in terms of getting the photos taken in the first place (since it usually means hiring a professional photographer) and then in terms of processing and preparing them for the Web. I agree that the VA and some other museums are now beginning to do a truly splendid job of posting useful, detailed online photos of a few objects (sometimes even hundreds of objects) but not all museums feel they can afford to follow suit, or else simply don't have that as one of their priorities. (I know some interesting pieces that are now in a museum in Qatar, for instance, which has NO photos of items in their collection online yet.) It's often annoying to see something mislabeled on the Web (sprang mis- labeled as knitting, for instance). First, of course museums are not infallible: they can only use the knowledge they have. Second, sometimes a former opinion on what something is (made when knowledge was less) persists for a long time because either they can't find someone whose scholarship they trust to say otherwise, or again purely because no one on staff can spare the time to do the fixes. A recent example is an Islamic knitted cotton sock that is still labeled as probably coming from India, when that idea has been pretty thoroughly debunked within the last twenty years or so. Annoying as it is, sixty costumers writing in to a museum to say fix this, please is often not going to make a lot of difference. The problem is that museum staff can't know all the experts in all fields personally, so they have to rely on credentials to judge who is and who isn't giving them good advice. If you have a Ph.D. or published scholarly papers on Islamic textiles, for instance, they are likely to take your advice more seriously than if you are someone who has been studying and re-creating historical costume for thirty years. You may know just as much as the Ph.D., but the museum has no way to know who does and who doesn't know what they're talking about. OChris Laning clan...@igc.org - Davis, California + http://paternoster-row.org - http://paternosters.blogspot.com ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
On Nov 11, 2010, at 1:52 PM, Chris Laning wrote: Both of these, alas, pretty much boil down to questions of money. Museums are increasingly understaffed, and often can't spare the time for their curators to do much research on what something really is and how it should be labeled. Also, it means that the few curators they can hire often don't cover the full range of expertise they need for the things they have -- almost no fine arts museums have jewelry curators, for instance. Sometimes it's a matter of what costumers can do for museums! It's possible that they could use volunteers for some of these tasks. If the museum is an essential source for the type of costuming you do, make them your project as well. -Carol ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
Then I think one of the most useful things a museum could do would be lots of photos and get some darned closeups. The pictures I looked at on the from the link you posted for the Smithsonian didn't have anything that wasn't full length - no details at all. OTOH, some pictures I've seen from the VA get so close I could chart the knit or beaded designs. I really appreciate that kind of information online since it's unlikely I'll ever get to go to the museum. I work for a museum. We have a grand total of 4 staff. We all wear so many hats we can't keep track of them all. Personally, I'm responsible for the collection, the exhibitions, all museum security, the desktop publishing, supervising student fellows and work-studies, managing the climate control system, the museum shop, and more. I'd LOVE to have that level of detail for everything in the collection even for our own purposes let alone for interested visitors, but it's neither a time nor financial possibility at the moment... Astrida *** Astrida Schaeffer, Exhibitions and Collections Manager Museum of Art, University of New Hampshire Paul Creative Arts Center 30 Academic Way Durham, NH 03824-3538 603-862-0310 FAX: 603-862-2191 www.unh.edu/moa *** ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers
I work for a museum. We have a grand total of 4 staff. We all wear so many hats we can't keep track of them all. Personally, I'm responsible for the collection, the exhibitions, all museum security, the desktop publishing, supervising student fellows and work-studies, managing the climate control system, the museum shop, and more. I'd LOVE to have that level of detail for everything in the collection even for our own purposes let alone for interested visitors, but it's neither a time nor financial possibility at the moment... Astrida Astrida, I really do understand your problem. There are many museums I was able to wander through in Germany that aren't open any longer because the personnel simply aren't there and the people who do know the collections are simply not computer literate, nor do computers necessarily speed things up! Much as I cringe to suggest this would a cadre of volunteers help? I don't mean young, hot shot computer experts although some of Tudor Talkers might be great for this. I'm thinking of the wonderful guides I've had in various cities of older people who love their cities and now they have retired have time to devote to guiding and other things. Here in the States I'm always surprised at the number of people in their 80's and over who are not only computer literate, but desperate for something that they can do to keep their minds and fingers busy. I'm looking forward to taking classes that wouldn't do me any good for work, but that fascinate me (medieval/Tudor history). I'd be happy to learn any computer program you might need to help put things on-line if we were anywhere close. Digitizing books is one thing I could definitely do, and I'm used to working at least 40 hours a week. Wanda ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers?
Good article Allison! Thanks for letting both parties about the research process. Penny Ladnier Owner, The Costume Gallery Websites www.costumegallery.com 14 websites of fashion, textiles, costume history -Original Message- From: h-costume-boun...@indra.com [mailto:h-costume-boun...@indra.com] On Behalf Of A. Thurman Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2010 2:31 PM To: h-costume@mail.indra.com Subject: [h-cost] how museums can help costumers? I know a number of us have contacted museums for private behind the scenes visits in pursuit of our historic costume research. I also know some of us work at museums, with costume collections. At the request of the Center for the Future of Museums, I wrote a blog post about my experiences visiting the Smithsonian's costume collection, with suggestions on how dedicated amateur scholars and museums might work together. I'd love to get your comments, as would the CFM, as helping the public use museums is what they do: http://futureofmuseums.blogspot.com/2010/11/mining-myculture-serving-communi ty-of.html Please feel free to forward around! Allison T. ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume === Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 7.0.0.21, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.16260) http://www.pctools.com/ === === Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 7.0.0.21, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.16270) http://www.pctools.com/ === ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
