Hello Linda,
Although not an image librarian, I've been wrestling with this for some years. I've never seen it as a major source of additional income, but a means to make some of our enquiries and on demand digitisation pay for itself. We're getting towards that, but haven't quite reached it yet.
We've recently launched an online image store developed by a local company, Bright Interactive: http://bit.ly/nbbKwu. It's not a bespoke museum product, and doesn't connect to our online collections, but feedback from those who've used it has been very positive. We also use it for supplying press images, and I'm hoping we can also use it for providing a certain amount of content for free use.
In spite of this, most of our image sales emerge from curatorial enquiries. In practice, we're often selling the image alongside our knowledge. When it comes to licensing to media organisations (which is where most of our money is made), it's very difficult to take the dialogue out of the transaction -- and that's where the labour costs come in. For several years we've been recording requests in our collections management system (Mimsy XG), and we generate electronic licences with Crystal Reports. It's slightly cumbersome, but it has helped us to consider reproduced images as a type of object use.
As we're both large regional organisations, I'd be happy to have a chat off-list if that would be of interest.
Kevin
Kevin Bacon
Digital Development Officer
The Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
4 - 5 Pavilion Buildings
Brighton BN1 1EE
Tel: 01273 292817
Fax: 01273 292871
www.brighton-hove-pavilion.org.uk
www.brighton-hove-museums.org.uk
Please note that I work Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays only.
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Linda Ellis
Sent: 20 July 2011 09:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Selling image licences
We are starting to explore how we might make money from images of our
collection items - images of works of art, archival photos and physical
objects and I was wondering if anybody would be prepared to share on or
off list how they do this and what sort of income they manage to
generate.
Also interested in prints on demand that could be seamlessly linked to
our online collections website www.blackcountryhistory.org
<http://www.blackcountryhistory.org> so that users could order low cost
prints of items they find but we have no money for development work.
Linda
Linda Ellis
Project Manager Black Country Collections Online
Wolverhampton Art Gallery
Lichfield Street
Wolverhampton
West Midlands
WV1 1DU
[log in to unmask]
tel. 01902 552 048
fax. 01902 552 053
www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk <http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk>
www.blackcountryhistory.org <http://www.blackcountryhistory.org>
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