YALE OPENS DIGITAL IMAGE ARCHIVE TO PUBLIC

Patricia Cohen reports in the New York Times that Yale University has announced that it will be making its entire collection of digital images available to the public, free of charge. It is the first Ivy League university to do so. Thus far, 250,000 images are accessible; the university anticipates that it will take years for the entire collection to be made available. There will be neither limits to the use of these images nor licensing restrictions.

“The open access policy allows us to more fully harness the potential of digital and networked technologies in service to scholarship as well as to creative use and reuse of our rich cultural heritage,” said Meg Bellinger, director of Yale’s office of digital assets and infrastructure. “It frees us to concentrate on our core mission to create, preserve and disseminate knowledge in digital form.”