Friday, July 08, 2011

#CTM11 the #Tate and #Wikipedia (again)

A big GLAM like the Tate sends many people to a conference like communicating the museum. It allows for many conversations; at breakfast I met a lady from their commercial department. She is another one wondering how collaborating with these guys representing Wikipedia makes sense.

A commercial department is about revenue, so I talked how sales of images goes up. How we can provide statistics on articles using the material of a GLAM, about traffic. This is essential information because it is the kind of information that justifies continued funding. We talked meta-data and how pictures without meta-data does not provide the reliability we seek for our facts. How a reference to the website of a GLAM can drive sales.

We talked about people just grabbing the material without any regard for the GLAM that conserves the depicted material for next generations. We agreed that it is a fairly fixed percentage who is involved in such a way. They do not contribute in any way so they are best ignored.

Collaboration works best when we share information, when we share the imagery with the meta-data, when we are partners in bringing information that becomes knowledge to the people of our world.
Thanks,
       GerardM

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