Photographs on Spanish Ministries websites as informative documents. Access, visibility, functionality and usage policies

Abstract

Public information constitutes a documentary corpus of exceptional interest. Its value has made it necessary to regulate both its use as well as its reutilization by means of specific laws, with the purpose of placing this information at the disposal of companies, institutions, researchers and citizens in general. An important part of this information consists of the photographic documents produced and distributed by public bodies, about which very few studies have been carried out. The purpose of this investigation is to learn more about the use of photographs as documents that are found on the websites of Spanish Ministries, by analyzing specific aspects such as the access to them, their visibility, functionality, documentation and rights. This investigation finds that users have at their disposal close to 30,000 photographs available on the web and concludes by recommending the creation of a common image bank to gather the dispersed photographs and normalize both functionality and terminology, as well as establishing common criteria for documenting the originals.