By comparison, the development of online databases for museum objects has been greatly hampered by the lack of consistency in the source records. Art objects seldom self-identify the way books do, proclaiming author, title, place of publication, and dates on their title pages. Objects of different ages, cultures, and media are all described differently within a single museum, and there is even less consistency across museums. Not surprisingly, museums have struggled with record conversion over the last thirty years, trying to capture the richness of some of the original cataloging records and enhance the minimal information found in other object records.

Recent developments in the museum community address the historic lacunae of terminology, a concise set of data elements, and cataloging guidelines for documenting works of art and their image surrogates. The J. Paul Getty Trust has provided valuable leadership, developing thesauri for names, places, and subject terminology, and publishing guides to digital imaging and art image access.8 Getty Research Institute staff have worked with ARTstor and RLG Programs/OCLC to develop a data content standard designed for the description of unique cultural objects and a technical format for expressing this information in a machine-readable format called Categories for the Description of Works of Art Lite (CDWA-Lite).9 In addition, the Getty and the Visual Resources Association have collaborated on the development and promulgation of guidelines for selecting, ordering, and formatting art object information in a project called Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO).10

Interest in sharing collections information and images has increased in recent years.11 However, the process of exporting records from disparate systems and merging records that lack consistency remains challenging. OCLC, the international library service and research organization,12 was awarded a grant in early 2008 by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to address this challenge. Partnering with seven art museums, OCLC Programs and Research created a “low-barrier/no-cost batch export capability out of the collections management system used by the participating museums, Gallery Systems TMS,13 as well as a test of data exchange processes using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).”14 After the initial work with Gallery Systems’ TMS software, focus will shift to other vendors and museums with custom-built, in-house systems. OCLC collected data for analysis from the participating museums and released the software suite under a fee-free license in May 2009. 15

Ever since digital cameras were first employed in museums, professionals have debated the merits and costs of rapid image capture for photographic documentation versus time-consuming studio photography that produces carefully lit, color-calibrated, high-resolution files. Today most museums do a combination of both, but the gold standard for direct digital capture remains an image that supplies an accurate, fine arts­–printed reproduction. The question is how to define and ensure imaging quality and delivery standards.

Fortunately, imaging and publishing professionals from more than twenty museums have recently formed ImageMuse, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to defining guidelines for the creation and use of digital files for reproduction.” They are working with Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines (UPDIG),16 an ad-hoc industry consortium of nonprofit associations dedicated to promoting worldwide standards in the commercial application of digital imaging. In addition to defining best practices for digital capture, ImageMuse and UPDIG seek to demonstrate the economic benefits of implementing standards that apply to fine arts reproduction.17

In 1995, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum conducted a survey of museum rights and licensing policies to compare its own fee structure to that of other museums. The results were deemed so useful by the museum community that the Rights and Reproductions (RARIN) and the Registrar’s Committee of the American Association of Museums updated the survey in 2003-2004.18 Several prevailing practices can be noted by the responses of more than one hundred museums:

Clearly, museums have established pricing structures that favor nonprofit and scholarly use, but the criteria used to identify the client’s eligibility vary case by case. The handful of museums that have begun to make fee-free images available are defining a scholarly publication by the size of the print run, but they are using different numbers in that determination, ranging from a maximum run of two thousand to as high as four thousand. They have also adopted varying terms and conditions for electronic use.19

The copyright laws of the United States are designed to protect original works of authorship, whether published or unpublished, while at the same time encouraging creative expression and promoting development of the collective knowledge. Copyright ownership is time-limited, and in recent years the term of protection has been extended from date of creation to creator’s death plus seventy years. The law gives the copyright owner the right to reproduce or authorize others to reproduce the work in copies. However, this right is limited by the doctrine of fair use, which permits copyrighted material to be used without permission, as well as other copyright exceptions. Moreover, in the United States, works published before 1923 are in the public domain and therefore no longer subject to copyright laws.20

Historically, museums have asserted copyright in photographs of works in their collection even when the underlying work of art is in the public domain and therefore not protected by copyright.21 Their reasons included controlling how the images would be used, trying to ensure the quality of reproduction, and recouping partial production costs to support more photography. However, in the 1999 The Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corporation case, the judge ruled that exact photographic copies of public domain works could not be protected by copyright because the copies lacked sufficient originality. This holding was recently supported in a decision of the Federal Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Today, many museums are still claiming copyright over images of works in the public domain, but other museums are questioning this policy.22

Museums with contemporary art collections are faced with an additional licensing challenge. Although they may own the actual work of contemporary art, the artist generally retains the copyright. To publish an image of such an object, the owning museum must seek permission from the artist, artist’s estate, or a copyright licensing agency representing the artist, such as the Artist Rights Society (ARS), unless fair use or another exception to copyright applies.23 In reproducing the work, the museum often is required to agree to the artist’s terms and conditions of use, which are generally non-exclusive, and specify a given timeframe, set number of copies, and the territory of distribution. Outside clients seeking to publish a contemporary work in a museum’s collection acquire the image from the museum and are reminded to obtain permission from the copyright owner of the work depicted in the image before publishing the image. Some museums fear that relinquishing this gatekeeper function may jeopardize their relationships with artists and their heirs, although museums typically do not facilitate permissions between artists and publishers.