Collaborative Cultural Resource Creation: the example of the Art Museum Image Consortium

In July 1999, the Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) made a library of digital multimedia documentation of more than 50,000 works of art available under subscription to educational institutions. In so doing, it was forging a new model of how museums and the educational sector might together create and sustain multimedia digital libraries, respecting copyright and making rich content available at an acceptable cost. After less than a year, more than 500,000 university students have access to AMICO and several other large scale distributions are under development. What can be said now about the educational impact, and educational potential, of the consortium?