Suzanne Quigley wrote, in part:
 
1) >the museum professional's role in promoting debate and freedom of
information<   Education seems to be the buzzword these days.  In the
States (Barbara is in Canada) we also have the Freedom of Information Act.
While not a lawyer, it seems to me that the FIA (also called "sunshine
law") may play a role here.  I believe it pertains to all publicly funded
collections.  I wonder if I'm wrong in thinking there is a difference
between putting out your dirty and clean laundry for all to see, and having
someone ask to see specific bits of laundry for a specific purpose.   I
would rather we put out our clean laundry (i.e., databases of publicly
useful collection information) - I don't mean to imply "cleaned-up"
laundry.   But then, I am talking about databases, not the exhibition
labels and text for the Enola Gay exhibit.  The more interesting question
for me is:
 
and then also:
 
>But the point I wanted to raise, had to do with intellectual property
>rights and copyright.  If the Enola Gay didactics were to have been scanned
>and put up on the net for all to see, would this have been a violation of
>copyright? Intellectual property rights?  I think it is a wide open
>question.  Those labels were the fruit of someones intellectual efforts.
>Do those labels belong to the individual(s) even if not published?  Or to
>the SI (and by extension the amurican taxpayer)?  Anyone got any thoughts?
 
 
The relatively simple answer to Suzanne's question is that if the curators
(or educators) working on this information were on the federal payroll,
then the government (you and me) probably own the information.  But,
whether this means that we will get access to the information without
invoking the feedom of information act, I don't know.  I suppose it depends
on how reluctant the Smithsonian is to make this info available, and
whether the Smithsonian's administration feels that it can hold a copyright
on intellectual property and not share the data with the public.  I hope
not--I don't see any national security issues here....
 
But I do think that Suzanne's question raises some other interesting issues
concerning intellectual property rights issues that pertain to museum
collection data, and I'd be interested in other people's comments.
 
The other night, for instance, I was watching a PBS documentary on the
history of the computer, and an interveiwee was talking about how we had
progressed from the agriculural revolution, to the industrial revolution
and now to the information revolution.  He was making the point that our
economy will become increasingly dependent on information and information
will itself become a commodity.
 
In previous postings, more than one person has talked about how this fact
may bode well for museums as collectors, managers and disseminators of
information.
 
But I wonder...what exactly does this new commodification of information
mean for all of us?  Some of us museums are publicly funded, some receive
public funds in the form of government grants, and all of us (if we are all
non-profit) are exempt from at least some taxes in exchange for our public
service role.  In the future, will we *own* the information we maintain in
our collections?  Will/should we be able to charge people for access to
this information?
 
In some ways, museums have already begun to charge for this access to
information by charging admission fees to exhibits.  No, you often can't
get the information in our exhibit or our catalogue for free.  To an
extent, this makes sense to the average person because they recognize the
additional expenses of displaying or publishing objects and information in
a special aesthetic and educational manner.
 
But what about access to our collections data bases?  Our garden, like NYBG
and Missouri Botanical Garden, is working (slowly) on data basing our
collections.  When we ask NSF for their $ participation, they ask us if we
are going to charge people for this information.  And, we aren't sure.  If
NSF helps us to data base the collections, certainly our out-of-pocket
expenses will be less, but we still would have significant ongoing costs
for simply maintaining the hardware, software, data files and network
access.  And, many people may not understand these additional expenses they
way that they intuitively understand the expense of mounting and
exhibition--"Afterall, weren't you going to data base the collections
anyway?"
 
And if we do decide to make the info generally available, should we "clean
up" our data for public presentation (that is, make it presentable the way
we make exhibitions presentable)?
 
I see some real potential conflicts between information as a commodity and
the free flow of information as an intellectual right.
 
Richard Chute                           [log in to unmask]
Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden         1500 North College Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
Phone:  (909) 625-8767, ext. 222        FAX:  (909) 626-7670