Well, these issues have been thrashed out pretty thoroughly
in the four or five months that I've been participating in
this list.
I would suggest that you get a look at the index of museum-l
and refer to some of these discussion.
My take on the issues you raised: 1) Images of artwork look
terrible on computer, and are not a "threat" to the
visitorship at museums. Also a better educated population is
good for all of us. 2) Other types of collections having
images on the net are largely useful to scholars. We at the
New York Botanical Garden want to make our herbarium
specimens available that way, to allow botanists to browse
through the collection. I can tell you that for us, a
comprehensive visual database is at least a decade off.
3) Collections information on the net is not a threat, and
security measures are readily integrated into net access.
Libraries have been on line through OCLC and RLIN for years,
and noone suggests that this poses a threat.
Eric Siegel
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