[Wikimediauk-l] Motivations for encouraging access to public domain scans etc

--- David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Leaving aside the current copyright scan issue, what are the arguments for encouraging access to scans of documents and putting them in the public domain? Preserving old documents, pictures, photos etc costs money - in storage, in preservation expertise, in cataloguing, etc etc. Scanning, indexing and cataloging stuff is tedious and costly in staff, time and equipment etc etc. So I can appreciate that an organisation (of whatever flavour) who has done that either wants to reclaim some of the costs (by restricting access to subscription), or wants to get credit/publicity benefits (by only wanting the scans to be available via their website), or whatever. So what are the counter-arguments? Are they all just about altruism and public good? That will work with some organisations, I imagine, but even charitable ones like public galleries have to get the money from somewhere to achieve that - and many sponsors still want their logo credited with the spend. I'm also thinking here about encouraging organisations who haven't yet digitised. Apologies if I am being naive. Scott ___________________________________________________________ All New Yahoo! Mail – Tired of Vi@gr@! come-ons? Let our SpamGuard protect you. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html