Thursday 11 June 2009

Round of applause

This week I've been admiring how Te Papa is opening up about its digitisation work on its blog.

Blow by blow, the conversation has gone like this:

Victoria Leachman, rights manager at Te Papa, blogs about a new batch of images of collection works that are now available online.

Over the net raises questions about how Te Papa prioritises its digitisation work

Leachman replies on the Te Papa blog* with an explanation that focuses on the (hey, let's be upfront about this) incredibly vexing issue of copyright clearance

Over the net responds with big ups and more questions ...

And today, Adrian Kingston is at it on the Te Papa blog with a lengthy and cogent article about digitisation at the museum, which touches on many of the pertinent issues and gives a solid big picture view.

It's not simply noteworthy that Te Papa is both fronting up to the questions, and using the correct vehicle to do it. It's actually bloody impressive that staff are doing the posting so quickly. I'm not saying you need to be this prompt, and this fulsome, with every enquiry that comes your way. But when the people who do the asking really care, and when the topic at hand really matters, you should. Congratulations, guys - long may it continue.


*Side issue - Over the net doesn't have commenting enabled; usually a reply to a post would be appended to it, but in this case Leachman did the right thing, IMO.

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