Topic: V&A Museum online collection - Monart

[chopin-liszt]

Exactly - there are loads of us who'd do the task just for the love of it!

[KevinH]

Actually if they found a photographer I wouldn't mind going up for the week to catalogue and match    what a  fab way to spend a week surrounded by all that beautiful glass.
m

Exactly - there are loads of us who'd do the task just for the love of it!

Yes, if it could arranged, it could be very useful ...

Perth Museum & Art Gallery have included much, or possibly all by now, of their collection of glassware in the website scran.ac.uk, which is run by Scran Ltd., part of The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

In 2003 I arranged with the museum to photograph and catalogue all of the glass paperweights, excepting “picture weights”. That action initially came as a result of a paperweight club visit to the museum when some apparent misattributions were noted. My review of the weights and the production of the catalogue (colour images and text) was non-professional and was not charged for. I was simply happy to assist in something worthwhile and to get another personal viewing of the complete reserve collection.

At the time I was producing the catalogue images (and checking the weights with uv light), a professional photographer was also engaged in making images of other parts of the museum collections, as well as the paperweights. It was the professional images of the paperweights that were used for the Scran website. However, my catalogue was used to provide corrections to the museum attributions and general data which, in turn, has been used within the Scran website.

[Paul S.]

nice to fantasize but..................... somehow I think they'd very politely decline your offers .........however, never let it be said that you didnt try.     Their email address is....ceramicsandglassATvam.ac.uk.         I've altered the address very slightly - as you can see (@)    Wish you every success.        Surely you're too far flung Sue, but don't know where m is.         Do let us know what they say

[Frank]

The correction of the Z ginger jar has been made and will go live on the next monthly update.

Photographing the V&A collection would still have a resource cost as no-one could be left alone with, nor normally handle the glass. They freaked when I picked up an uncertain piece... had to wear gloves. I pointed out that absolute authentication could only be done by feeling a piece. But still got given the gloves.

[flying free]

Frank I realise the resource issue, but if they had just *one* person there holding and positioning the glass and a 'prize winner' student photographing it and a 'volunteer' matching the shots taken to the catalogue id's and numbering them accordingly, then their only resource would be one person, rather than two and paying for a paid professional photographer.
Sometimes thinking outside the box has great gains - I wonder if they have considered this.  Not only that, but once done it would be a fabulous marketing tool - not only to publicise their amazing collection, but also they would be able to harvest names/email addresses of visitors looking for glass by ensuring you had to sign up to view, and then market to them regarding forthcoming events.
m

[Frank]

Museums are generally constrained to think only in the box. As they have experience of photographing 30,000 pieces I would expect they are very aware of the resource costs and it would be higher than you imagine, but even one person dedicated to the project would be an enormous strain. Most of the glass would need cleaning too, not to mention all of the paperwork... I would not be surprised if they have as many pieces of glass, if not more. I don't doubt they have much more than 30k pieces of ceramic anyway. There reserve collection of glass is massive. You could probably spend 10 year trying to catalogue it. On the plus side I would expect new acquisitions are photographed on arrival.

[chopin-liszt]

Ok, they'd need teams of us!
Two of my friends here came to stay with me for a week's holiday last year - which they spent cleaning, polishing and photographing my collection.  :thud:  A labour of love indeed!

[flying free]

ah well...I don't hold out any hope then unless they are bequethed a huge sum of money with a specific request that it is spent on catalogueing their glass.
I'm up to town mid August for a few days, so I am determined to go to the V&A and have a look round if I can manage a few child free hours.  Are you allowed to take photographs does anyone know?  I saw a number of pictures online from someones visit and just wondered whether they were illicit or not 
m

[Paul S.]

personal/private snapping seems to be permissable, provided you ask the security staff within that room before clicking away  -   I have not had a problem in the past.    

[Paul S.]

can also suggest that if a visit was possible on the first Tuesday in the month - then Reino Liefkes (I can do unashamed name dropping as well), and his colleagues offer an open surgery between 2.30 and 5.00 p.m.  -  should you have a piece of glass in need of attribution.      Understandably, visitors are required to sign in and out  -  just to make sure you aren't leaving with a piece of 'nipt diamond waies'.         Always good to see behind the scenes, and they have a library to die for.     I have spoken again to them, and sorry to disappoint you but they most definitely have 'in house' photography staff, who........"are trained how to handle glass"......so think that services offered by Sue and m will not be required.