British Museum Will Digitize Entire Collection at a Cost of $12.1 M. in Response to Thefts
British Museum Will Digitize Entire Collection at a Cost of $12.1 M. in Response to Thefts
The British Museum will update or upgrade records of 2.4 million items to increase security and public access.
That's the good part.
Now the bad part:
The increased digital access to the collection would also be part of the museum’s response to requests for items to be returned or repatriated. “Part of our response can be: “They are available to you. Even if you cannot visit the museum, you are able to access them digitally.” That is already available—we have a pretty good website—but we can use this as a moment to make that a lot better and a lot more accessible,” Osborne said.
"Yes you can have the phone back I stole from you, I uploaded an image to instagram"
I'm so glad they're doing this for preservation and archival reasons, but this reasoning that digital copies are the same as receiving your stolen items back is utter bullshit.
Maybe the museum should digitize the item, then give it back. You know, since they're just as good.
Yea fully agree
Greece would like their stolen stuff back.