Welcome to Miami !

Dear colleagues, VRA*23 is just around the corner!

The 23rd Annual Conference of the Visual Resources Association will be held March 6- 10, 2005, in Miami Beach, Florida. This cosmopolitan city is the perfect setting for the stimulating conference program and interesting mix of participants that continue to make VRA the conference for image management professionals.

VRA*23 will cover today’s hot topics in digital imaging, information management, and teaching with technology, and it will attract hundreds of professionals from major academic institutions, cultural organizations, and the commercial sector. Together in fabulous South Florida, conference goers will experience outstanding professional sessions, workshops, and seminars, enjoy unsurpassed Miami art museum collections, sample South Beach’s famous restaurants, and experience the exciting international flavor of this tropical city that bills itself as the “hottest destination in the world.”

Conference headquarters will be the Wyndham Miami Beach Resort, a beautiful property perched on the Atlantic Ocean and the Intercoastal Waterway. The hotel offers state-of-the-art facilities, a restored art deco style interior, well-appointed guest rooms, many with floor-to-ceiling sea-view windows, excellent meetings rooms, three on-site restaurants, and plenty of gathering places--poolside, seaside, or inside! The Wyndham is a short taxi ride to the many restaurants, shops, and famous attractions of South Beach and trendy Lincoln Road.

Our conference organizers, Vice-Presidents Jeanne Keefe and Sheryl Brittig, assisted by a local arrangements committee and many volunteers, are planning an event not to be missed. Highlights include:

Workshops presented by experts in the field on topics such as Charting a Course for Digital Collection Development, Managing a Digitization Project, CCO Bootcamp, XML for You, Photoshop 202: Cool Tools for Enhancing Painting, Sculpture, Drawing, and Architecture, and Administration and Archiving of Photographic Collections.

Informative Sessions and In-depth Seminars on Sustaining Digitization Programs in the New Economy, Cross-campus Development of Digital Image Libraries, New Tools for Teaching with Images, Faculty Issues, William Randolph Hearst and the Cistercian Monastery, Cataloging Landscape Architecture, Metadata: Indexing and Retrieval, Creating a Digital Strategic Plan, and much more.

Vendor exhibits, Special Interest Groups, and the Ask the Expert Corner, provide other opportunities to learn about new technologies, emerging products, and common issues.

Special Events include: Keynote speaker Peter Jaszi, Copyright Expert, Law Professor, and co-founder of the Digital Future Coalition; the ever-popular Tansey Educational Fundraising Dinner, to be held poolside at the Wyndham Resort; an Evening Reception, hosted by Saskia, Inc, at the Spanish Monastery, a Miami landmark, originally built in 1141 in Segovia, Spain; our lively and entertaining VRAffle emceed by Patti McRae with the able assistance of the Raffle-Rousers.

Conference activities will center on the VRA Commons, the meeting place for registration, coffee, our cyber-café, and vendor exhibits. VRA*23 will be an excellent opportunity to learn new things, share experiences with enthusiastic and knowledgeable colleagues, and enjoy the local culture, architecture, and art of Miami Beach and the surrounding area. Please join us for a fabulous conference experience!

Kathe Hicks Albrecht, American University
VRA President