Finally got around to visiting the Ashurbanipal exhibition at the British Museum.[1] The exhibition is near first class.[2] If you are in London, treat yourself. The use of light projection to help illustrate the ancient friezes was smart, and done in a way that still let you examine the original objects in their normal state.
I was taken aback when I realised that at the start of the exhibition, the delightful twenty foot across print of a panorama of a modern location in Iraq was sourced to Alamy.[3] Later in the exhibition, the modern location photographs I noticed were sourced to Alamy with credits to the photographer. Considering how much impact the Wiki Loves Monuments projects have had over recent years,[4] it is a shame that long established GLAM partners of our Wikimedia projects like the BM, still appear to prefer the ease of commercial stock photography libraries, rather than finding and trusting free images from Commons, or thinking of asking our Community for assistance if high quality photographs of historical locations are missing from our free collections, and might help future exhibitions.
Does the UK chapter have any plans to do more to promote GLAM reuse of our free archives, or to bang the drum a bit more in GLAM journals where this happens successfully?
# Links and footnotes 1. https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/ashurbanipal.aspx 2. The convention of style over technical precision seems the norm. Failing to include accession numbers on descriptions, a lack of seating and displaying the fantastic library of cuneiform tablets in a case ten foot high and with no useful labels at all, tend to be considered bold choices rather than anything the museum wants to improve 3. The technical photographer within me noticed the slight focus anomalies, possibly due to the way software joins were done, and avoidable with either a far more expensive camera with panoramic features, or by stacking a much larger number of multiple shots 4. https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org
Thanks Fae
That's an interesting point. I haven't been to the exhibition myself yet, though I wonder if there was a comparable image on Commons.
Awareness of Commons as a resource is important especially amongst those who decide on the content of exhibitions. Progress is being made and you can find some images from Commons in places such as the Reading Museum and the English Heritage website. Perhaps it would be worth establishing the level of awareness of Commons amongst heritage professionals.
On Fri, 4 Jan 2019, 12:24 Fæ <faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Finally got around to visiting the Ashurbanipal exhibition at the British Museum.[1] The exhibition is near first class.[2] If you are in London, treat yourself. The use of light projection to help illustrate the ancient friezes was smart, and done in a way that still let you examine the original objects in their normal state.
I was taken aback when I realised that at the start of the exhibition, the delightful twenty foot across print of a panorama of a modern location in Iraq was sourced to Alamy.[3] Later in the exhibition, the modern location photographs I noticed were sourced to Alamy with credits to the photographer. Considering how much impact the Wiki Loves Monuments projects have had over recent years,[4] it is a shame that long established GLAM partners of our Wikimedia projects like the BM, still appear to prefer the ease of commercial stock photography libraries, rather than finding and trusting free images from Commons, or thinking of asking our Community for assistance if high quality photographs of historical locations are missing from our free collections, and might help future exhibitions.
Does the UK chapter have any plans to do more to promote GLAM reuse of our free archives, or to bang the drum a bit more in GLAM journals where this happens successfully?
# Links and footnotes
- https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/ashurbanipal.aspx
- The convention of style over technical precision seems the norm.
Failing to include accession numbers on descriptions, a lack of seating and displaying the fantastic library of cuneiform tablets in a case ten foot high and with no useful labels at all, tend to be considered bold choices rather than anything the museum wants to improve 3. The technical photographer within me noticed the slight focus anomalies, possibly due to the way software joins were done, and avoidable with either a far more expensive camera with panoramic features, or by stacking a much larger number of multiple shots 4. https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org
Thanks Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Would certainly love them to use more images from Commons. The main barriers seem to be:
1. A perceived lack of legal certainty when using Commons images
2. Lack of in house legal expertise leading to an almost paranoid fear of 1.
3. Hugely greater time and expertise needed to find, research and download Commons images, including the requirement to read, understand and accept a vast variety of complicated tags, templates and scary warnings.
4. (Sometimes) past experiences with the Wikimedia communities giving rise to concerns of bad publicity and reputational risk if they get it ‘wrong’.
More effort is needed from all of us to tackle those barriers.
Michael
On 4 Jan 2019, at 13:01, Richard Nevell richard.a.j.nevell@gmail.com wrote:
That's an interesting point. I haven't been to the exhibition myself yet, though I wonder if there was a comparable image on Commons.
Awareness of Commons as a resource is important especially amongst those who decide on the content of exhibitions. Progress is being made and you can find some images from Commons in places such as the Reading Museum and the English Heritage website. Perhaps it would be worth establishing the level of awareness of Commons amongst heritage professionals.
On Fri, 4 Jan 2019, 12:24 Fæ <faewik@gmail.com wrote: Finally got around to visiting the Ashurbanipal exhibition at the British Museum.[1] The exhibition is near first class.[2] If you are in London, treat yourself. The use of light projection to help illustrate the ancient friezes was smart, and done in a way that still let you examine the original objects in their normal state.
I was taken aback when I realised that at the start of the exhibition, the delightful twenty foot across print of a panorama of a modern location in Iraq was sourced to Alamy.[3] Later in the exhibition, the modern location photographs I noticed were sourced to Alamy with credits to the photographer. Considering how much impact the Wiki Loves Monuments projects have had over recent years,[4] it is a shame that long established GLAM partners of our Wikimedia projects like the BM, still appear to prefer the ease of commercial stock photography libraries, rather than finding and trusting free images from Commons, or thinking of asking our Community for assistance if high quality photographs of historical locations are missing from our free collections, and might help future exhibitions.
Does the UK chapter have any plans to do more to promote GLAM reuse of our free archives, or to bang the drum a bit more in GLAM journals where this happens successfully?
# Links and footnotes
- https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/ashurbanipal.aspx
- The convention of style over technical precision seems the norm.
Failing to include accession numbers on descriptions, a lack of seating and displaying the fantastic library of cuneiform tablets in a case ten foot high and with no useful labels at all, tend to be considered bold choices rather than anything the museum wants to improve 3. The technical photographer within me noticed the slight focus anomalies, possibly due to the way software joins were done, and avoidable with either a far more expensive camera with panoramic features, or by stacking a much larger number of multiple shots 4. https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org
Thanks Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On Fri, 4 Jan 2019 at 13:21, Michael Maggs michael@maggs.name wrote:
Would certainly love them to use more images from Commons. The main barriers seem to be:
A perceived lack of legal certainty when using Commons images
Lack of in house legal expertise leading to an almost paranoid fear of 1.
Hugely greater time and expertise needed to find, research and download Commons images, including the requirement to read, understand and accept a vast variety of complicated tags, templates and scary warnings.
(Sometimes) past experiences with the Wikimedia communities giving rise to concerns of bad publicity and reputational risk if they get it ‘wrong’.
More effort is needed from all of us to tackle those barriers.
Michael
And in this case most of the images we do have are US millitary which is not without its own issues.
'Does the UK chapter have any plans to do more to promote GLAM reuse of our free archives, or to bang the drum a bit more in GLAM journals where this happens successfully?'
Hi Fae, from my point of view, I would certainly like to promote GLAM reuse of CC licensed material more, but this is probably something that might be more effective coming from Wikimedians in Residence. I wish we had one at the British Museum, and I have tried contacting people there who curate various parts of the museum about events we have run in the past, with no luck. I may have another go at tryng to find a contact in their communications department. In terms of GLAM journals, also I think that this is something that might be more effective from Wikimedians in Residence, and I can tell you that having tried for the past month to pitch articles to various news and magazine outlets about Wikipedia's 18th birthday, that it is pretty hard and time consuming to do press outreach. GLAM journals may be a different kettle of fish, however, and I would be happy to listen to suggestions about journals which anyone thinks we should be contacting.
I think that we will have an opportunity later this year when the Structured Data on Commons project concludes, and Commons becomes (hopefully) much easier to find content on. I hope to hear from the WMF if they have any plans to do comms around that event, and am always willing to listen to suggestions about how people feel we might promote this kind of important news.
Regards,
John Lubbock
Communications Coordinator
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 203 372 0767
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On Fri, 4 Jan 2019 at 14:08, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, 4 Jan 2019 at 13:21, Michael Maggs michael@maggs.name wrote:
Would certainly love them to use more images from Commons. The main
barriers seem to be:
A perceived lack of legal certainty when using Commons images
Lack of in house legal expertise leading to an almost paranoid fear
of 1.
- Hugely greater time and expertise needed to find, research and
download Commons images, including the requirement to read, understand and accept a vast variety of complicated tags, templates and scary warnings.
- (Sometimes) past experiences with the Wikimedia communities giving
rise to concerns of bad publicity and reputational risk if they get it ‘wrong’.
More effort is needed from all of us to tackle those barriers.
Michael
And in this case most of the images we do have are US millitary which is not without its own issues.
-- geni
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org