Image not found? 29 April 2008

Here is a fantastic blog about the differences between museums’ online photography collections in the US and the UK.

British photographic collections lagged far behind their American counterparts, not only in what they offered, but also how it was offered, and to whom. In Britain, the collections are either divided into small bundles of infotainment, or offered as a business transaction to specialists, picture editors and the media, who buy reproduction rights.  In America, by contrast, there is much more of an understanding that accurate and methodically catalogued online collections can appeal to academic researchers and photo enthusiasts alike.

Lots of food for thought there: just who are these collections, and these web sites, really made for?  If one system views their collections as art for the public and the other system view them as a revenue stream, can each of these systems learn from the other?

I’ve often said, only half-jokingly, that I want to be the V&A’s resident ghost someday to give me time to go through all the collections; if the article is correct about their display rotation policy, it looks like I’ll have to.