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Branding : One factor was
the desire to create stronger V&A branding. Many museums have great
collections, but the museum felt that if more people could easily access high-quality images of V&A objects, there would be a greater understanding that
the museum is the world’s preeminent place for the decorative and applied arts.
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Research : The curators of
the V&A are actively engaged in scholarly writing. They have a deep
understanding of the impediments museums place on obtaining high-resolutionimages for scholarly publishing and were, therefore, supportive of their own
institution’s lowering the barrier to acquiring images.
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Image Access: Access to images has been transformed
for the museum’s actual and virtual visitors. People photograph in the V&A
galleries, scan images from books, and “right-click” images from the V&A
website. Ian Blatchford says, “Museums that are not loosening up on theprovision of images are in a fantasy world. The images are out there already;
why not ensure easy access to high-quality images and information?”
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Leadership: V&A
Director Mark Jones’s personal passion for making collections available was thestarting point. He had stressed that there is a public benefit in museums
sharing the collections they hold in trust for the nation, and he feels stronglythat not making them easily available is simply unacceptable. Furthermore, the
Board of Trustees was completely behind the decision. Both Director and Boardunderstand that visits to the website, which continue to grow annually, provide
new ways for the public to experience the collections. They also hoped thatdelivering free images for scholarship might encourage other museums to follow
their lead.
Delivery mechanism
The V&A decided to integrate the delivery
of high-resolution images for scholarly publishing into the “Collections” areaof its website. The “Collections” database includes thirty thousand works
represented by more than fifty thousand images and is expected to grow by abouttwenty thousand images per year. In addition to simple and advanced searching
options, the user finds explanations on the website of three ways to obtainimages:
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Standard Web Image : Free,
web-sized images can be downloaded by right-clicking.
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High-Resolution Image :
Free, high-resolution images are available for “privileged usage,” defined asacademic/educational/scholarly publications; scholarly journals; student theses;
private study and research; critical editorial use; charity, society, and trustnewsletters. The user must agree to the Terms and Conditions of Use and register
his/her email address to set up an account. Up to thirty images can be requestedper order (this is a functional constraint only; users can place multiple
orders). The user is sent a separate email message with a link to the site wherethe images are available for downloading.
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Commercial Usage :
Commercial users are directed to V&A Images to discuss
individual projects and obtain high-resolution images.
At the same time that the museum is foregoing
licensing income from scholarly publishing, it is very actively marketingcommercial use of images. These include filming at the V&A, licensing short
educational films produced by the museum, photo-shoots, commissionedphotography, and a customized high-quality print service.
