I went to the V&A last week and took photos of everything I could,
which I really should upload some time sooner rather than later. In
fact, I want a better camera for low light just to do the V&A.
Their photo policy is "feel free", just don't use a flash and don't be
a nuisance. There are a limited number of exhibitions they ask for no
photography in (there's the Design in China one at the moment, for
example), but mostly you can take pics of anything.
So - apart from those of you with cameras that are good in low light
photographing every damn thing to be found in the entire V&A ...
1. Do we have a list of photographer-friendly museums?
2. (the biggie) How do we thank V&A for their openness? And how do we
do it in such a way as to encourage *other* museums to open their
collections up to free content photography? I'm thinking talking to
them and working out a joint press release.
Has anyone here gone hogwild with a camera in UK museums? Do please tell!
- d.
On 09/04/2008, Tom Holden <thomas.holden(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a friend who's qualified as a barrister who may be interested in
> helping out, but he wants to know in more detail what kind of problems you
> envisage wanting his help with. (I'm sorry if this was obvious from the
> foundation-l discussion, I unsubscribed in despair at the volume of nonsense
> that list generates these days.)
Everything and anything, really - that's one of the reasons paying
someone would be better than a volunteer (once we have the funds to do
that). Mainly I expect it would be how UK copyright and libel laws
affect Wikimedia projects. The current discussion on foundation-l is
about the fact that Wikipedia is licensed under GFDL version 1.2 *or
later* and there are suggestions that such "or later" clauses aren't
valid in some jurisdictions. It would be useful to have someone able
to advise the foundation/community on whether they're valid in the UK.
Inspired by the recent legal discussions on foundation-l, I've had an
idea for something the chapter could usefully do. It's not something
we'll be able to do any time soon (it would certainly require a bank
account! [any progress on that recently?]), but I'll probably forget
it, so I'll suggest it now.
We should hire a lawyer. In addition to handling legal stuff for the
chapter they would be able to advise the foundation and appropriate
communities (where practical) on issues of UK law. Currently the
foundation's only legal expert, Mike, is purely a US lawyer and,
AFAIK, has no experience with other jurisdictions. That's not a great
situation for a foundation involved in activities all over world.
Obviously, the WMF cannot hire a lawyer from every country in the
world, but individual chapters can hire lawyers for their country and
offer their services to the foundation. I think doing so would be an
excellent use of chapter funds (once we have some, that is).
Hi all,
I've received the following invitation for a speaker in the UK, and I thought it
most efficient to share this with the UK list to gauge interest.
I'm also in the process of developing a volunteer speaking list for each of the
major territories, so I can send requests to people directly.
If you're interested in being added to that list (or if there already is one you
might know of...) feel free to send me your contact information directly. Please
also provide some information about areas of interest, your background on WP or
the other WM projects, and what experience you have when it comes to speaking or
lecturing.
Thanks in advance,
--
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Talk Invitation: Sheffield UK
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:33:52 +0000
From: Susheel Varma <susheel.varma(a)sheffield.ac.uk>
Reply-To: susheel.varma(a)sheffield.ac.uk
To: jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org
CC: Wales PA <wikispeaker(a)gmail.com>
References: <7488e7730803181442t798c409fm304bad207de05f5c(a)mail.gmail.com>
<282a01800803191053i5bbc3a58i63a8851979905329(a)mail.gmail.com>
Dear Jay Walsh,
The Kroto Research Podium Seminars is a long running seminar series
organised weekly by The Kroto Research Institute(KRI) at Sheffield,
UK. The series is mainly aimed at young researchers and participants
to gain access to and interact with distinguished speakers on a wide
range of research topics. The seminars are usually held every Friday
between 10am-12pm and is designed to be informal and free and open to
all members of the University across disciplines.
We have heard that you are a wonderful speaker and deeply passionate
about the work that you do at Wikimedia.org We are particularly
interested in the work your organisation does in the field of Openness
and IP, and we imagine there to be a wide range collaborative
interests between us. We would additionally like to extend the
invitation to any other suitable spokesperson from your organisation
to Sheffield. We would be deeply indebted to you if you could spare
some of your time to give us a talk at the North Campus Conference
Centre here in Sheffield about your thoughts, opinions and comments on
Open Research. We would be able to cover all reasonable travels
expenses within the UK and lunch afterwards. We have listed a number
of possible dates/time for your visit to Sheffield below:
20th June 2008 (11am-12pm)
11th,18th July 2008 (11am-12pm)
8th August 2008 (11am-12pm)
Our research websites (http://www.shef.ac.uk/dcs/research/ and
http://www.shef.ac.uk/northcampus/) will provide an overview of some
the work carried out by our research staff, and may hint at some of
the collaborative ideas that may be possible. Should you have any
questions or need additional information regarding our request, please
feel free to reply to any of my contact addresses below.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to your
reply to our request.
Sincerely,
Susheel
--
Susheel Varma
Computational Systems Biology | Tel : +44 (0) 114 22 25931
Department of Computer Science | Fax : +44 (0) 114 22 21810
The Kroto Research Institute | Web : www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~susheel
University of Sheffield | Email: susheel.varma(a)sheffield.ac.uk
Broad Lane, Sheffield, S3 7HQ, UK | Email: susheel(a)dcs.shef.ac.uk