In a message dated 02-01-28 11:18:11 EST, Jill Dixon wrote: << However, he is making a documentary and wants to bring his cameraman to video the docs & photos - normally to get a color copy of a photograph, we charge and to make copies of anything we charge a fee. If people further want to use a copy of a photograph from our collection in a publication, there are additional fees and requirements for crediting our museum. >> Please pardon my delayed reaction to the questions in the above post--but I often wait to see if someone else responds before I wade in. I don't recall seeing a comprehensive reply, so I'll try it. There are at least two important issues involved when someone wants to do their own photography of your collection material on your premises: (1) Sometimes their whole objective in doing so is to save money by getting around or eliminating your usual photographic fees. This may be reasonable in the case of a non-profit scholar with a small budget, but when a commercial user makes such a request, it rubs me the wrong way. (2) Whether the requester is non-profit or commercial, permitting such "outside" photography means that you are relinquishing a certain amount of control over the use of your collection, and you ought to think hard about the implications. Outside photographers who walk away with negatives, transparencies, or digital files of your collection are less subject to your oversight than if they purchased (or rented) your copies of your material. Generally, the institution should retain as much control over the production and use of images of its collection items as possible. It isn't just a question of money--when the users make their own copies, you can't monitor proper captioning, identification, etc. I was once startled to discover in a university slide library a commercially made copy of a unique item from our collection. Obviously the slide had been made many years earlier, and the caption had an error and there was no attribution as to source. This is a disservice to the user, who would have no way of knowing the original source. While the slide might have been made from an authorized, museum-supplied copy, it seems to me that by allowing an outside photographer to make his own copy, the likelihood of losing data is increased substantially. If you sell copies for study purposes, but mark them with a statement that reproduction requires your permission, at least you have some hope of controlling or monitoring usage by responsible parties. Our museum has a policy of requiring approval by the public affairs office before an outside photographer gets access to collection material, and an "access" fee may be imposed on commercial entities. This fee offsets savings gained by not paying for museum-produced copies. (I'm afraid this procedure is not always consistently followed, but at least the mechanism is in place.) The first time I became aware of the existence of this policy, I had begun to allow a picture researcher to make slides of photographs and graphics in our holdings, and had the uneasy feeling that he was getting unfair access to large quantities of material. When I alerted the public affairs office, they proposed a contract to him which contained a fee that he didn't want to pay, so he stopped copying. I then found that his real objective was to amass a large file of cheap copies which he could use on a speculative basis to market book ideas to publishers, and I was relieved that we had found a way to short-circuit his scheme. Allowing him to walk away with very inexpensive copies of large quantities of material would have been like a gold mine for him, and would have been fundamentally unfair to those who must pay for copies through normal channels and aren't in a position to hire a photographer or do their own work. We try to be flexible in our approach to this procedure. Occasionally there are good reasons to permit outside photography, and you may need to consider possible exceptions to the rule (bearing in mind the control issue). Some staff think it's just easier to allow outside photography rather than monitoring pay orders, schlepping and overseeing your stuff through your photo lab, etc., but to me the most important issue is adequate control over the publication of your material, with proper identification, etc. I think permitting outside photography of your collections needs to be the exception--with appropriate justification--rather than the rule. We usually reject requests from people who want to bring in their own scanners to scan flat materials in our collection. We'll do it for you, thank you. And we'll do our best to track how our scans are used. Hope this helps, as they say. David Haberstich ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).