Comment by illumen
10 years ago
Considering the subject matter, the commercialization of these images in the public domain by the upper class is... quite funny.
10 years ago
Considering the subject matter, the commercialization of these images in the public domain by the upper class is... quite funny.
Even though I really don't agree with what the BnF is doing, I don't think you can call the National library some kind of "representative of the upper class".
It's the nation commercializing national property, which is far from ideal, but still hugely better than the pre-revolutionary situation.
You could definitely call Standford part of the upper class.
The BnF comes from the Royal library, and the new building was announced by the President of France. It's one of the upper class organisations that has moved through various types of governments from Royalty to Napolean to modern Presidents. Now it is supervised by the Ministry of Culture and Communication. 3000 people daily go through the reading rooms, which is a very small percentage of the French public -- less than 1%, less than 0.1%.
Stanford doesn't commercialize the images though.
The French National Library does, and actually Stanford makes freely available the highest resolutions[0] which are otherwise sold 25€ or 50€ by the BnF (which also sells, more legitimately in my opinion, high-quality physical prints for reasonable prices).
[0]https://stacks.stanford.edu/image/iiif/bv002kr2012%252FT0000...
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