Hi Liam,
2011/3/10 Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com:
Hi Yann,
There is no shortage of museums that have huge collections of great stuff to photograph! :-) But yes, it would be good to get more Indian cultural heritage onto Wikimedia. According to the museum's website http://www.nationalmuseumindia.gov.in/ you can enter for 300rupees and are allowed to take photos for a further 300rupee fee. Presumably therefore, if you do buy this ticket, that means their policies allow people to take photos inside. I can't confirm this and it would be good if you would check for yourself so as to avoid any confrontations. I do not personally have any contacts at that museum and directly coordinating GLAM outreach relationships is not something that the Wikimedia Foundation can achieve. It is up to the local communities (and especially the chapters) to work out their best plans. I can help when necessary but we don't have any "official" capacity to contact anyone - we're just Wikimedians after all :-) Relatedly, I am working on the concept of the "GLAM Ambassador" who would have some kind of formal backing so they could get access to institutions, but this is a very young idea still.
In the mean time I would suggest that, if you can confirm if they DO allow photography, that you go ahead and do it - but make sure that you also add their record/accession/item record number to the metadata when you upload it so that it can be tracked back to their catalogue. If they do NOT allow photography then it will be a longer process to form a relationship with them to either have them donate their own images or allow Wikimedians in for a specific photography event.
Well, there are several problems with that.
1. In order to make good photographs, a tripod will be necessary. I doubt they will allow that for the usual fees.
2. Seeing the size of the museum, many days will be needed to take good photographs (not snapshots) of a sizeable portion of the museum. At 300 Rs. each, it would be expensive for me. Actually I might not need to pay that much, as I am a resident in India, and I am entitled to the Indian fees.
3. For some items, there might copyright issues to publish the resulting images under a free license.
Sincerely, -Liam
Regards,
Yann
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata
On 9 March 2011 16:44, Yann Forget yannfo@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
I visited the National Museum in Delhi today and I have discovered that it contains a huge collection of arts which would be very interesting to have in Wikimedia Commons. I have a decent camera and a tripod, and I could spend some time taking photographs there, if the museum would allow. Would it be possible to contact them officially, either Hisham or someone from Wikimedia India?
Regards,
Yann