On the Use of Images
Welcome back to The Occult Library, and many thanks for your support, words of encouragement, and positive feedback over the past two weeks.
At this juncture in the project’s development, we have sourced and utilised a large number of images in our Publications section. This primarily includes images of book covers, although certain images displaying book excerpts are sometimes found.
Concerning this use of images, we felt it pertinent to describe our approach to use.
Images represent a unique form of intellectual & artistic provenance. For one, digital images of books are the property of those who created them. On the other hand, a fine balance must be struck between the ownership of images, and the right to educational fair use for the sake of community resources. Our approach to image use has attempted to locate & maintain such a balance.
In gathering and collating our information, one matter became quite clear: namely that, despite the availability of images directly from many publishers, images of out-of-print books & no-longer-listed materials are simply unavailable beyond the realm of individual photographs garnered from the web.
In some instances, the photographs taken by private individuals or businesses are the only such documents of their kind. Compounding this matter, it became evident to us that such images are often difficult or beyond the scope of the average user to find. In our case, many such images were gleaned after intensive image searches. Particularly, this process was dependent on Google, historical archives or snapshots, or similar image searches leading to discontinued websites, or works with no attribution.
With the sparse nature of such images in consideration, we considered the notion that these may be fully lost to users if we were not to draw upon their use. This, we felt, would ultimately contribute to the weakening of both the reader & community.
In turn, our decision was resolute, albeit with a distinct means of accountability: we would opt to use these images on our site with the condition of a statement found at the bottom of the page. This statement clearly agrees to credit the owner of the images – or remove such images if the holder felt it inappropriate for us to feature them.
This statement & agreement is our means of striking the aforementioned balance.
As our role is primarily one of information stewardship, it is vital that we recognize and respect the topography of both the commons of fair use, as well as the right to creators to maintain their intellectual domain.
In a broad sense, images are an essential piece of the full bibliographic and cataloging picture. Insofar as readers, collectors, and practitioners are concerned, images of texts help to firmly distinguish & delineate a given material; they offer both a visual aid, as well as an entire ‘sense’ for the material described.
We are proud of the work we have accomplished in our first month of construction, cataloging, and launch. We believe that by abiding a standard of balance and fairness, The Occult Library will build a trustworthy & integral reputation for users – and for those whose images we may have sourced for our entries.
We thank you again for your concerns and questions in this first month since launch, and we look forward to a continuing and fruitful relationship.
Very best wishes,
– The Occult Library Staff
