Micki,

This should not be as complex as you are making it sound.

Actually this is an opportunity to enhance your policy.

Charge and appropriate use fee (and you can have a lower fee structure
for non-profits).

Also insist that your instituion receive full creditation within their
DVD for the specific images, something like "Whaling" ca. 1901, by
permission of the ORcas Island Historical Museum.

Write up the revised policy, make sure that the board buys into it,
and distribute it to the volunteer and  / or any other donor who is
still around. Gently and kindly inform everyone as to the fact that
once they donate to the museum the use of the objects is determined by
the museum.

This way you establish firm ownership and control of the use of the
images, you receive a use fee, the volunteer is happy and the board is
happy, and with the creditation the public knows where they can see
the original photographs.



Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Conservator
Los Angeles, California USA


On 5/8/07, Micki Ryan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I am searching for opinions and points of view about a little dilemma:
>
> Our museum is a small community's history museum, dealing with local
> history.  The volunteers here volunteer with every other non-profit in the
> community as well.
>
> I have before me a request from a volunteer, in ours and another
> institution, to use images of ours in a DVD that another non-profit she
> volunteers for will sell in their new shop.  Our image use policy does not
> permit use of our images for sale where the profit goes to another
> institution.  You might think it would end there, but this is not so simple.
>
> The original donor of the particular images of interest is also the
> volunteer who is now making the request to use those images for another
> organization. In a big city, perhaps this simply would not matter, the
> policy is the policy.  In a small, isolated community, our tendency is to
> help one another out.  And, the policy says it is up to the Curator's
> discretion to remove image use restraints or reduce fees when appropriate
> (the commercial fee I should assess is too much for the small non-profit).
> I did tell her I could sell the pictures for a display, but not for
> continuous sales to the public. Also, I plan to use two of the images she
> has requested in an exhibit in preparation now for the summer season.
>
> The Board feels it is up to me to decide, since they hired me to make such
> decisions.  I'm uncomfortable providing images that we sell in our shop (in
> the form of a book we have published) to another institution to sell in
> their shop.  Yet, we would be willing to sell them the book for resale... .
> I also don't want to be the new Big Bad Curator; in fact the volunteer/donor
> says she was never told she couldn't use her own pictures again.  If she
> signed a Deed of Gift she would have that language, but if you think this
> small community organization has a history of doing things by the book,
> think again.  Also, the Deeds are not filed alphabetically, so I don't even
> know where to begin looking.
>
> I've been avoiding this issue because I have plenty of other ways to spend
> my time, but I must face it soon. I'd like to think of a way that this could
> be an exception in return for a favor, but I don't know what that favor
> would be.  They will be opening their new gift shop for the summer season
> next month, so I can't put it off much longer. Any advice?
>
> Micki Ryan, Director
> Orcas Island Historical Museum
> POB 134, Eastsound WA 98245
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>
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