Museums

How the TPP Will Affect Libraries, Archives, and Museums

Libraries, Archives, and Museums

Excessive copyright terms harm the availability of books, photographs, and all creative works in the public domain. It also worsens the orphan works problem, when obtaining permission to use works is impossible because the rightsholder is unknown, deceased, or is nowhere to be found, and so preserving or archiving copies of them could be legally risky.
Heavy penalties for infringement, in the form of pre-established statutory damages that are not connected to the actual harm from infringement, chills preservation and archival efforts, where copying or changing the format of existing works is already legally risky.
Research and quotation can be hampered by bans on circumventing DRM on books or other kinds of digital content, and also limit the availability of digital works
Despite explicit exception for libraries and museums, a ban on tools for circumvention limits their ability to take advantage of it because they often lack the knowledge or tools to do so.
Weak exceptions and limitations language gives no incentive for countries to give legal certainty to activities of libraries, archives, and museums that involve technical acts of copying or DRM circumvention—such as enabling the use of copyrighted works for research and quotation, preservation, and copying material for educational purposes.

From How the TPP Will Affect You and Your Digital Rights | Electronic Frontier Foundation

December 9, 2015 by Archives Libraries Museums 0

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 5 Remaining Card Catalogues

Before Watsonline and The Collection Online, the Met relied upon good old-fashioned card catalogues. Finding books might have been slower going back then, but we still have a soft spot for these relics from the not-so-distant past. I spoke with caretakers of five of the remaining catalogues, and we took a closer look how they’ve helped us in the internet age. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

From Cabinet Fever | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

November 22, 2015 by Museums 0

Museum Specimens Find New Life Online

For centuries, scientists who wanted to study a particular type specimen had to visit the museum where it is kept or have the specimen sent to them. Either way, the potential for damage was high: fragile body parts would sometimes fall off during inspection or transport, causing irreparable damage.

Each type specimen is “like the Mona Lisa,” said Katja Seltmann, a biologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York who specializes in biodiversity informatics. “If an antenna or a leg breaks, all of a sudden, a really large part of information about that organism is gone.”

From Museum Specimens Find New Life Online – The New York Times

October 20, 2015 by Museums 0

Libraries’ DIY crowdsourcing brings museum collection to life

The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History’s collection of 130,000 specimens offers more than meets the eye.

Detailed data accompanies nearly every item in the museum’s collection. Though rich in information that could yield promising avenues of research, data collected by hand can be difficult to search and analyze.

From Libraries’ DIY crowdsourcing brings museum collection to life | Iowa Now

October 8, 2015 by Libraries Museums 0

First lady: Libraries, museums are ‘necessities,’ not extras

“Whether you’re bringing virtual classes in STEM education to remote areas and inner-city communities, or teaching our children about their Native American and African-American heritage, so many of you are working to close the heartbreaking opportunity gaps that limit the horizons of too many people in this country,” Mrs. Obama said.

From First lady: Libraries, museums are ‘necessities,’ not extras – SFGate

May 18, 2015 by Libraries Museums 0

The Internet of Things Plan To Make Libraries and Museums Awesomer

The new tech arrives at a tranistional time for cultural institutions. As technology has advanced, it%u2019s changed why people visit libraries and museums. In the wake of the Great Recession, just as many people used libraries for free computer and Internet access as they did to borrow books.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3040451/elasticity/the-internet-of-things-plan-to-make-libraries-and-museums-awesomer

January 8, 2015 by Internet Libraries Museums 0

Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian’s Design Museum Reopens

From The New York Times:

On Friday, Dec. 12, 1902, Andrew Carnegie moved into his just-finished home at 91st Street and Fifth Avenue, with his wife, Louise, and his 5-year-old daughter, Margaret, to whom he handed the key. Carnegie lived there until his death in 1919; Louise until hers in 1946. Margaret was married there but moved next door. When she died in 1990, her childhood home had long since become headquarters for the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Lovely slideshow on the renovation by Gluckman Mayner Architects which include a new, wide-open gallery space, a cafe and a raft of be-your-own-designer digital enhancements.

December 12, 2014 by Museums 0

Marks of Genius at The Morgan Library & Museum

In a New York Times review by William Grimes, entitled “A History of Awesome in One Room”, the JP Morgan Library’s new exhibit from Oxford’s Bodleian Library is described as featuring “some of the loftiest texts ever recorded”; the poetry of Sappho, the Magna Carta, the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, Euclid’s Elements, Newton’s Principia Mathematica, Shelley’s Frankenstein and an illustrated score by Felix Mendelssohn.

“Marks of Genius” works hard at its theme. Stephen Hebron, the Bodleian’s curator of the exhibition, carefully traces the changing meanings of genius since antiquity in a concise but wide-ranging catalog essay. The exhibit runs through mid-September at The Morgan Library.

June 13, 2014 by Librarians Libraries Museums 0

Every Library and Museum in America, Mapped

“There’s always that joke that there’s a Starbucks on every corner,” says Justin Grimes, a statistician with the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington. “But when you really think about it, there’s a public library wherever you go, whether it’s in New York City or some place in rural Montana. Very few communities are not touched by a public library.”

In fact, libraries serve 96.4 percent of the U.S. population, a reach any fast-food franchise can only dream of. On a map, that vast geography looks like this:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/06/every-library-and-museum-america-mapped/5826/

June 12, 2013 by Librarians Libraries Museums 0

10 museums, libraries to be honored at White House

Ten libraries and museums across the country are being honored at the White House for contributions they have made to their communities.

They will receive the 2012 National Medal for Museum and Library Service on Wednesday. The 10 honorees range from school libraries and children’s museums to a park conservancy.

This year’s honorees include the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, Fla., and the Long Island Children’s Museum in Garden City, N.Y.

November 14, 2012 by Libraries Museums 0

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