i've been thinking a bit about the relationship museums have with their collections; about the sense of responsibility to preserve and interpret that comes with custody, and about what might change in an environment where social network spaces are the norm.

in 1997 at the first Museums and the Web museums were really worried about questions of control. there were long discussions about appropriation, about commercial use, and a lot of angst about the possibilities of mugs and keychains. partly this was based on the fact that corbis (aka continuum, aka interactive home systems) had been buying rights in the area, and creating a sense that there must be a market for museum images.

about the same time a group forward-thinking art museums got together to form the Art Museum Image Consortium, and license high-quality images for educational use. rather than thinking this was a money-making proposition, they were interested in finding more economic ways to meet the needs of the educational community, a core group that they wanted to serve. they wanted to protect rights and gain an economic benefit if there was one (which is why they were licensing) but at the same time, they wanted to do it in a way that was cost effective (they were spending a lot of time saying 'yes' to educational use.) [full disclosure, i was the executive director if AMICO; but its planning and direction came from its members.]

the museum community seems to have slowly come to realise that there are a number of different value propositions for distribution of reproductions of works of in their collections. there may still be some great icons that will sell. but in many cases the value of having a collection known may outweighs worries about lost revenue, particularly when the images being released on the public web really aren't large enough to do that much with.

but as soon as you put museum collections in a public place, the public will do what they do .... search logs show us that many look for 'nude' ...
and if you let people comment, they will: they will tell you about your typos; they will tell you that their child could have made that painting; and they will argue about the significance of works. they will also tell you things that you might never have known, and you can learn from that. but what happens when two branches of a family choose your museum's site as the venue for a dispute about what was 'true' family history?

that's when museums have to have policy and procedures in place, so that they can act appropriately. debate is good, derision is not. behaviour in a museum web space should be no different than in a museum's other public spaces. so just like with newspapers, semi-moderated forums, review of postings, and occasional removal of offensive remarks might be necessary.

but it's a different thing when museums enable their works to be used in what could be considered personal spaces. When we let a user pull a museum reproduction into their own space – like their Facebook profile – then, the museum can't demand control. ... that's my space ... that's when museums have to trust, that people who care enough to link to works in museum collections will also respect them for what they are.

/jt

j. trant, partner, archives & museum informatics
www.archimuse.com