Although the introduction of the Internet has not materialized great revenue opportunities for
museums in licensing their digital images to various commercial and educational markets, a
greater challenge facing museums in defining the access and re-use models of digital
reproductions refers to their role as providers of valued intangible goods, that is integrity,
authority and contextualization of knowledge and information related to physical collections
(Pantalony 2007).
As noted before, museums have been traditionally providers in the analogue world of such
intangible goods generating value to society as producers of authoritative and trusted content
about cultural objects. However, the transition to digitization and to a digital network
environment asks for a reconsideration of their role as leading providers of authoritative
content.