[NHCOLL-L:2485] RE: valuation of a slide collection

[Barbara J. Winter]

Karl:

Your donor's widow is correct - the slide collection is very valuable.  The 
issue is not the value of the images in terms of their scientific 
documentary value, but rather their value as images in their own terms.

Photographers routinely sell images of Images that are used in 
publications, media releases, web sites, as well as non-educational or 
commercial contexts such as posters, mugs, T shirts, etc..  Images are sold 
to image banks, publishers and commercial enterprises.  One of the leading 
image banks is GettyImages: 
(http://creative.gettyimages.com/source/home/home.aspx).  As you can see 
from a survey of their pricing structure, images are big business.  There 
are photograph appraisers who can evaluate the collection. Images 
illustrating diaries of a life spent traveling to exotic places to make 
natural history/bird collections in during the 1930s through the 60s, would 
be highly sought after if they are well composed and in good condition.

Scientific photographs are a little appreciated resource in museums.  They 
are more than documentation of collections of specimens. We need to expand 
our concept of the types of data/objects/collection we acquire and curate, 
and the uses to which we put our collections.  The photographs being 
offered represent a wonderful opportunity to increase the effectiveness of 
your natural history education and may bring monetary benefit to the museum 
in future.  Please contact me directly if you want to discuss this off-list.

Barbara

Dr. Barbara J. Winter
Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology
Department of Archaeology
Simon Fraser University,
8888 Barnett Highway
Burnaby, BC Canada V0X 1T0

bwinter at sfu.ca
604 291-3325    voice
604 291-5666    fax
Find us on the Web: www.sfu.museum

No one with any human curiosity can dislike a museum."
P.D. James
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20041124/cf266151/attachment.html