The Dutch National Archives has announced that the Archive's photogeraphy collections including the Spaarnestad Photo Foundation will close to users effective from April 1, 2024. The Spaarnestad collection, which consists of approximately 15 million photos, will be preserved as a collection in its entirety.
The National Archives has been working with the foundation since 2010 and has the collection in its possession. Until now, the services surrounding the collection were provided by Spaarnestad Photo, which is no longer sustainable. More than 1 million photos are accessible via the National Archives' image bank. About 400,000 photos are digitally available and downloadable to everyone. This remains the case.
The Dutch Archives states that the closure was necessary for the bulk of the collection - some 800,000 photographs - because copyright and/or image rights apply to them. The National Archives is currently in discussions with an external party to provide the services previously provided by the Spaarnestad Photo Foundation in the short term.
Spaarnestad Photo provided services for the Spaarnestad collection, so that (copy)rights holders received payment for image use. A solution to the issue of copyright payments is currently being worked on. Part of the payments for images went to Spaarnestad to cover costs. Even though the foundation will cease to exist on 1 April 2024, the collection will be preserved in its entirety. The NA is currently considering next steps for specific services to museums, media, publishers and other external users.
The Dutch national Archives manages 15 million photos, with more than one million online. The photo collection provides an overview of events from the period between 1865 and 1990. Of these more than 400,000 high-resolution photographs are available for use for free. The National Archives has relinquished its copyright for most of these photographs and they can be used freely, including in commercial publications.
The closure has prompted an outcry from historians and users and claims that the Archive's photography collections have a low priorities with a lack of trained staff to support them.
Spaarnestad Photo Foundation runs one of the world’s largest photographic archives, managing a collection of over 13,000,000 images, specializing in Dutch life dated from 1867 through until the digital era. It is undoubtedly the richest visual resource documenting how Dutch people lived and breathed in the mid to late 19th and entire 20th centuries. In the collection you can find art, culture, festivals, inventions, fashion, food, housing, traffic, healthcare, business and finance imagery and much, much more.
Working hand in hand with the Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands, the complete physical collection is recognized as a national heritage. Since 2011 the photo collection has been rehoused and is conserved at their depot in The Hague, while Spaarnestad Photo handles the professional usage.
See: https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/nieuws/de-spaarnestad-collectie
https://spaarnestadphoto.nl/spaarnestad-photo
Image: Fotocollectie Spaarnestad Onderwerpen / 477067_006
Comments
A very very sad development.