WORKSHOPS

Workshop 1
Sunday March 6th, 11:00 am-3:00 pm

VR Fundamentals for New Visual Resources Professionals
Sponsored by the VRA Education Committee

Workshop Organizer: John Taormina, Duke University
Workshop Leader: Karin Whalen, Reed College
4 hour workshop
Fee: $55

This workshop is designed for new visual resources curators and librarians to introduce them to the administrative functions of the visual resources library and offer them guidance in the effective management of an image collection, both analog and digital. This workshop will focus on the issues that VR professionals must deal with on a daily basis. Topics to be covered will include a brief history of the profession, organizational issues, budget preparation and grants, human resources, circulation and reference, record keeping and reports, policies and procedures, analog/digital collection development, and best practices.

Workshop 2
Monday March 7th, 9:00 am-12:30 pm

Charting a Course: a Project Management Perspective for Digital Collection Development

Workshop Organizer: Margaret Webster, Cornell University
Workshop Leader: Oya Y. Rieger, Cornell University
3 1/2 hour workshop
Fee: $55

The goal of the session is to map and describe issues surrounding the creation of digital collections. It will focus on managerial aspects of building and maintaining collections, including needs assessment, feasibility and requirements analysis, project management, and assessment. Within this framework, the discussion will cover selection, copyright, digitization, metadata, system and interface building, and preservation. Workshop participants will be offered practical strategies that represent current and emerging standards, best practices, and sound decision-making. The presentation, group exercise, and discussions will equip the participants with skills to:

Set realistic goals, resource requirements, and time lines.

Understand the basic principles of benchmarking for conversion, metadata, and systems development Plan, manage, and evaluate projects.

Consider long-term management issues, including preservation and mainstreaming (moving from project to program mode).

It is highly recommended that attendees review the Cornell’s Digital Imaging Tutorial at http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/ before attending this workshop. Participants are encouraged to bring their digital collection ideas to use as a basis for the group exercise and discussions.

Workshop 3
Monday March 7th, 2:00 pm-5:30 pm

Administration of Photographic Collections

Workshop Organizer: Sheryl Brittig, MIT
Workshop Leader: Martha Mahard, Harvard University
3 1/2 hour workshop
Fee: $55

This workshop will focus on effective management of photographic collections, taking into account both intellectual access issues and preservation planning. Participants will obtain skills in recognizing the special problems of photographic collections, obtain strategies to gain control of large quantities of materials, and develop an awareness of the various standards and guides to best practice now in use.

Workshop 4
Monday March 7th, 11:00 am-5:30 pm

Managing a Digitization Project
Sponsored by the VRA Education Committee

Workshop Leaders: Howard Brainen, Two Cat Digital and Trudy Levy, Image Integration
6 1/2 hour workshop
Fee: $95

This workshop is intended to address many of the important issues that are faced by managers of digitization projects. It will provide an overview of every step in the process, from setting selection criteria to establishing an effective workflow to project evaluation. (It will not address metadata.) Also includes a detailed section on determining the cost to digitize in-house (staffing, equipment, facilities), and comparing that cost to quotes received from outside vendors. Color management is also discussed. A lively question and answer period gives participants the opportunity to pick the brains of these digital imaging experts.

Workshop 5
Tuesday March 8th, 2:00 pm-5:30 pm

CCO Bootcamp

Workshop Leaders: Ann Baird Whiteside, University of Virginia and Elisa Lanzi, Smith College
3 1/2 hour workshop
Fee: $55
CLOSED

How exactly does Cataloging Cultural Objects work? How do I apply CCO in my everyday cataloging? Will CCO answer my cataloging questions? CCO has been available in draft form on the VRA web site, and has been introduced in several sessions in the last year. This workshop will be an opportunity for hands-on use of CCO with other colleagues. In this workshop participants will work on cataloging questions prepared by the moderators and suggested in advance by the participants. Participants will have the opportunity to try cataloging in two databases, which will provide an opportunity to see two applications of CCO. Workshop leaders Ann Whiteside, University of Virginia and Elisa Lanzi, Smith College, are two of five editors of CCO and are practitioners and theorists in image cataloging.

Workshop 6
Wednesday March 9th, 2:00 pm-5:30 pm

Photoshop 202 ™ - Cool Tools for Enhancing Painting, Sculpture, Drawing, and Architecture

Workshop Leader: Mark Braunstein, Connecticut College.
3 1/2 hour workshop
Fee: $55

This workshop will demonstrate tools and techniques for enhancing images of artworks and architecture, even those poorly photographed. For Painting, we will remove color casts and restore colors to faded slides of faded paintings. For Sculpture, we will replace distracting backgrounds with neutral grey and add shadows for depth. For Drawings and Architectural Plans, we will apply a quick three-click cleanup with whiter whites and blacker blacks. And for Architecture, we will reconstruct facades whose photos look more like pyramids, and illuminate details otherwise lost in deep shadows. The workshop will last three hours. An optional fourth hour will be devoted to Photoshop ™ tips of a general nature, so bring questions or even questionable images. Previous Photoshop ™ experience is suggested for this eyes-on workshop. Instruction texts will be provided, so this will be truly hands-off.

Workshop 7
Wednesday March 9th, 2:00 pm-5:30 pm

XML for You
Sponsored by the VRA Digital Initiatives Advisory Group (DIAG).

Workshop Organizers: Ann Baird Whiteside, University of Virginia
Workshop Leader: Patrick Yott, Brown University
3 1/2 hour workshop
Fee: $55

Are you curious about XML? How is it created? What does it do? Can I do XML? This workshop will offer the opportunity to learn about XML—what it is, how it works, and you will learn to create your own XML document.

This workshop will introduce participants to what XML is as a document modeling language, and how it can be used to create Image metadata (we'll use the VRA Core Schema, if available). Workshop participants will receive both a theoretical overview of XML as a meta-language, and will create their own XML based metadata records. The workshop will include a discussion of XSLT as an XML rendering tool, and participants will be able to render the metadata records created during the workshop. Additionally, we will discuss how image metadata can be incorporated into larger metadata structures such as METS records. Patrick Yott (Head, Digital Services at Brown University) will lead this workshop. Patrick has taught XML and XSLT technologies for the Association of Research Libraries and is currently implementing an METS based repository at Brown.