The technological aspects of such a repository wouldn't take a lot, but as Neven wrote the issue isn't technological, it's social and legal, at least for manuscripts. Personally I'd be amazed if libraries allowed it, not so much because of lost revenue and control (though that would be a factor), but more because they're concerned about quality of images. If we publish less-than-fully-professional images from a library, then the assumption tends to be that it was the library who took the photos and therefore the imperfections are their 'fault'. That assumption may not seem valid, but (from what I understand) it's a very big concern for them.
The legalities are extremely complicated, not just in terms of copyright in all the relevant countries but also contract law. You may or may not have copyright over your photo, but even if you do there was probably something in the fine print saying that one condition of bringing in a camera is that you can't distribute the photos that you take, and that condition will be legally binding. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but it needs to be done carefully. Wikimedia Commons is an excellent example of how *not* to do it, in my opinion. There's some interesting discussion from the Max Planck Institute on the topic, including a possibly surprising level of openness from librarians, at least in principle. See
http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/news/features/feature4.
Looking at the ICMA Flickr stream, in practice it appears to be entirely architectural (despite their heading), not manuscript art. By my understanding, the legalities of photographing architecture are *very* much simpler than paintings or books.
Again, I'm certainly not saying this isn't a good idea and worth trying, but we can't forget that the social aspect is very complicated indeed.
Peter
On 28 Oct 2010, at 16:15, Gabriel Bodard wrote:
The HumSlides project at KCL used Flickr as a platform, I believe. Isn't
the digital image collection at the Institute for the Study of the
Ancient World at NYU doing something similar? I don't know anything
about the technicalities of either project, but I suspect there are
representatives of both on this list...
G
On 28/10/2010 16:06, Julia Finch wrote:
The International Center for Medieval Art is in the early testing
phase of collecting and sharing personal images of medieval art and
architecture, using Flickr:
http://medievalart.org/?page_id=185
I haven't checked in with this project for some time, so I don't know
whether it has been successful or not...
2010/10/28 Dot Porter<dot.porter@gmail.com>:
Thanks to Fred, and to Neven for following up on his point.
I would love to see an open repository of scholar-created images. I
don't think it would require very much - an agreed-upon Flickr tag
would do it, wouldn't it? Of course this would require that images be
uploaded into Flickr, and there may be some with reservations about
that. But there is something to be said for offloading storage costs
onto someone else (and we would get the additional benefit of being
part of a much larger digital repository, think of the possibilities
for cross-searching and for finding other manuscripts that aren't part
of "our" collection). I do say that as someone who has not used Flickr
very much and perhaps this is obvious. I would love to hear from
others on the list with more experience - how would Flickr work for an
intiative such as this, and would it really be as simple as I think it
would be (the social aspect Fred mentions - that would be, getting
everyone to use the same tag - is a somewhat different matter).
I should also say, belatedly, that I'm immensely grateful for the
responses to my query and for the great discussion coming out of those
responses.
Thanks,
Dot
2010/10/28 Neven Jovanoviæ<neven.jovanovic@ffzg.hr>:
Fred Gibbs touched an important topic:
"how to create and utilize an open access image repository (perhaps more
of a social challenge than a technical one) rather than the logistics of
producing images in the first place. Though by no means do I mean to
minimize the challenges of digitization. Indeed, the discussion of how to
meet the threshold of utility in image creation is a crucial first step.
But a larger (and somewhat utopian) vision of manuscript image access,
even with a latitude of image quality, is perhaps worth bearing in mind as
best
practices are worked out."
One question is: what do we need the images for? Another question is: are
we allowed to share the images?
Fred's vision is not only beautiful, it is something that comes naturally
to researchers. The libraries, however, have different priorities,
especially as regards sharing of their material (or images thereof). To
put manuscript images in a repository, I have to ask for permission the
library or the archive whose manuscript I photographed; at this point the
institutions usually get uncomfortable, for all kinds of reasons; and if I
do something without permission, I'll be in trouble next time I have to
visit that place. Yes, I know that a public institution *should* allow
the public to make its treasures public, but I also know that it's, well,
complicated.
We are discussing open data here. The data should be open, and we could
all do much, much more with a shared repository for our manuscript images.
But such a repository would at the moment have to function in a guerilla
way (I know of such repositories for Southern Slavic history, for example;
a nice approach is also<http://www.flickr.com/photos/uofglibrary/>, for
printed matter).
What do others think? Would such a repository be possible? Does it exist
somewhere outside of institutional digitizing projects?
Yours,
Neven
Zagreb, Hrvatska / Croatia
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