Dear Nick,
I think you might have misread my comment, which wouldn't be hard as I
didn't explain it.
Firstly regarding prejudice. I don't have any particular beef against
the roles of those who work responsibly in banking and finance on
whatever scale. However, I do take issue with those who wish to advise
cultural organisations on their commercial activities, as if there is
just one way or worse a 'model' that can be applied.
What you quoted from the international financier was "Investment banks
and commercial investors would be sceptical of investing in
Digitisation of cultural heritage as a commercial proposition."
What I meant with my terse comment was, does it really take someone
like that to tell us something most of us already know? Many of us
know that the way in which commercial investments are usually made, on
the basis of returns for investment over a fixed period of time
_cannot_ work, particularly regarding digital assets. It is the wrong
way of looking at things. It is the wrong way of commercialising
cultural activities (or parts thereof).
This isn't at all the same as suggesting that the dichotomy between
the cultural value and monetary value of museum/cultural activities is
too broad a gulf to bridge. What there is a lack of is creativity and
imagination in enterprise. Instinctively we know without seeing the
figures that the costs of digitisation far outweigh the income that
could be generated from sales of rights and reproductions. But decent
merchanising and marketing based on digital assets _could_ definitely
be a good money-earner, for example. Good museum shops are like good
museum cafes and tea rooms, they are a resource in themselves for
visitors and local communities and I wish many buyers used more of
their imagination to merchandise according to their collections as
there is certainly a demand.
Memory institution is an absolutely appalling term, however much it is
used (and by whoever). It is also inaccurate.
All the best,
Tehmina
On 30 November 2010 22:11, J DAVIS <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Now *that's* an interesting idea, Richard! ;-)
>
> --- On Tue, 30/11/10, Richard Light <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> From: Richard Light <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Costs of Sales
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Date: Tuesday, 30 November, 2010, 17:41
>> In message <[log in to unmask]>,
>> J DAVIS <[log in to unmask]>
>> writes
>>
>> The financiers do not have all the answers. If they did,
>> the question financing public culture would have been sorted
>> out by now.
>>
>> I thought it was the question of financing our financial
>> system which is being worked on right now? (This week,
>> Ireland ...)
>>
>> Maybe there is a lesson there for us: if we can persuade
>> the world that "museums can't be allowed to fail", then we
>> could screw things up royally and just wait to be bailed
>> out.
>>
>> Richard
>>
>> -- Richard Light
>>
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>
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--
Dr Tehmina Goskar, MA AMA
[log in to unmask]
http://tehmina.goskar.com/
Research Officer: ESRC History, Heritage, and Urban Regeneration: The
Global and Local Worlds of Welsh Copper
History & Classics
University of Swansea
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