Dear All,
I have followed this topic on the list with interest as through The Archives and Artefacts Study Network (A2SN) and my own research, I have a foot in both camps.
Debbie Usher makes very clear, reasonable and sensible points and her archive’s approach seems a good one. I can’t find the "seth_denbo" comment that Steven Davies refers to on [log in to unmask], but it would certainly seem a good idea to have some sort of national norm on for what and when charging is applied. Personally I have no problem with paying more than a straight copying fee for a beautifully readable, professionally digitised section from an early 19th century book that is hard to photograph. However, if I am allowed to photograph it myself, as Debbie says, I am doing the work, hence would not expect to pay.
The acceptance of users digital images for archive use however, seems to me to be analogous to archives using volunteers with specialist knowledge to aid the cataloguing process, something that A2SN encourages. My personal research practice is to use a digital SLR, shoot in Raw, using a camera stand wherever possible and then Photoshop into Tiff files at full size and 300 dpi. I don’t know how many other archival researchers do this, but I see a fair number of DSLRs and high end compact cameras in use. My photography is selective and naturally, bends to my research interests, but I have photographed entire files at the National Archives and others.
Might I suggest that archivists might publish to their users the standards that they use for their own digital files. If the user can contribute files of a suitable standard for whatever use the archive might make of them, why reject them? No professional archive should rely totally on user digitisation, but if some material is there and at a quality that is usable, why not at least use it to identify trends for what to digitise professionally and in the best cases incorporate some of it? Why not use groups of volunteer specialist researchers to identify and in some, officially sanctioned, regulated and carefully controlled cases, digitise groups of records to approved standards?
I hope that some of the above is useful.
Kind regards
Keith
Keith Harcourt
Co-Founder A2SN
A2SN – The Archives and Artefacts Study Network.
A2SN is an informal group of individuals that seek to explore and expand co-operation between volunteer-led societies and independent scholars as well as the archivists, academics and museum professionals working in the heritage and business history fields.
Have a look at our blog http://tinyurl.com/A2SN-Blog
You may also wish to join us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/A2_SN
Contact the list owner for assistance at [log in to unmask]
For information about joining, leaving and suspending mail (eg during a holiday) see the list website at
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=archives-nra
|