The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is adopting a new Open Access image policy.
The move makes all images of its public-domain artworks available for free and unrestricted use.
This will release over 375,000 images for scholarly and commercial purposes.
The Met’s CEO, Thomas P. Campbell, said the museum’s mission was to be ‘open and accessible for all who wish to study and enjoy the works of art in our care’.
To maximise the reach of the new initiative, the Met is partnering Creative Commons, Wikimedia, Artstor, Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), Art Resource, and Pinterest.
The museum has also announced its first Wikimedian-in-Residence, Richard Knipel, who will collaborate with Wikimedians around the world to bring images of public-domain artworks into Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia, and diverse GLAM-Wiki initiatives.
https://www.metmuseum.org/press/news/2017/open-access
