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Public access to historical photos ‘useful’ to researchers: Official
In reaction to an unauthorized publishing of photos from the Golestan Palace Photo-Archive as well as publicly released photos from the excavations at Shush for the first time, Mostafa Dehpahlavan said researchers are “thirsty for this information.”
Dehpahlavan expressed hope that the ministry should move towards a direction in the museums of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts that the doors of repositories and storerooms can be opened to researchers “as they are thirsty for this information.”
“When we put this information at the service of the academic community, rest assured that new research topics will emerge with these intellectual downpours, and as long as we lock the doors, there will be no healthy nourishment for noble research,” he said.
According to ISNA, recently a digital file containing more than three thousand pieces of photos from the album collection of Golestan Palace has been published in the cyberspace from an unknown source.
The release of these photos, which have been difficult for many researchers to access until now, has been met with various reactions.
Following the unprecedented release of these photos, Golestan Palace explained in a statement that “no object or album from Golestan Palace is missing,” clarifying that “a small part of the historical photo album of this palace has been published, and soon more albums of photos from Golestan Palace’s photo gallery will be published”.
The palace emphasized that “in line with better serving the academic and research community and in line with this year’s International Council of Museums theme, “Museums for Education and Research,” the Golestan Palace World Heritage Collection has decided to publicly release the ‘Shadow Albums’.”
Further in response to these reactions, Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Ezatollah Zarghami has recommended that, “People should be informed of valuable reserves”.
There are 1040 photo albums containing nearly 42500 photographs housed at the Golestan Palace Photo-Archive today.