April 1, 2005,
vol. 2,
no. 2
Image
Stuff Home
Editors: Marlene Gordon (University of Michigan-Dearborn) & Corey Schultz (Stanford University)
Table
of Contents
Winner
of VRA Student Poster Competition
Miami Conference Notes
Cataloging Conundrums
VRA Adds Own Voice to Orphan Works Comment
The Gates
Positions Filled
Chapter
News
Winner
of VRA Student Poster Competition
By Trudy Levy, Image Integration – VRA Membership
Committee Chair

At the annual conference in Miami, the Membership Committee announced
the winner of its competition for the design of a poster to inform
students about VRA and visual resources. As you may remember,
this competition was held last fall through solicitation on the VRA
list. After careful electronic perusal of the submittals, the
committee chose the simple and clear design from Julia McCandless of
Davis Art Images. When the image was projected at the Annual
Meeting, the rest of the membership joined the committee in expressing
their appreciation of the design. (This expression mostly took the form
of asking when they could have one to hang in their offices!)
This was a new, but welcome thought. It is the goal to publish
and distribute these posters this fall to more than 300 departments of
art history, studio art, architecture, museum, and library
studies. If you have a favorite institution, feel free to send an
email to Trudy@DIG-mar.com to
confirm that it is on the distribution list. The VRA will
be printing more than these 300, but other distribution has not been
decided at this time.
Any more ideas? Email
Trudy!
Miami Conference Notes
The 23rd Annual VRA conference was held in Miami Beach and offered a
variety of sessions, seminars, user groups, and workshops. Highlights,
for the record number of almost 300 participants, included the
Reception at the Old Spanish Monastery sponsored by Saskia Ltd., the
VRAffle with Pina Colada and Daiquiri Tasting sponsored by Davis Art
Images, the Luraine Tansey Education Fund-Raising Dinner, and the
members' reception with the keynote address by Peter Jaszi. For
those who were unable to attend, there is a link to the conference
photos below. Last, but not least, a special thanks to the Executive
Board, the Local Arrangements Committee, and the many volunteers for
another great conference!
Conference photos can be viewed at: http://www.vraweb.org/2005MiamiWebsite/Gallery/index.htm
Below is a sampling of web sites that were mentioned during the
conference or posted to VRA-L. If you have additional links to
add, please sent them to Marlene (mgordon@umich.edu)
and they will be published in the next issue of Image Stuff.
Workshop 3 - Managing a Digitization Project, by Howard Brainen (Two
Cat Digital) and Trudy Levy (Image Integration)
http://www.twocatdigital.com/VRA.html
http://www.dig-mar.com/worksem/vradigman.html
Session Links to Powerpoint Presentations:
http://www.vraweb.org/diag/resources.htm
Session 1 - Let's Get Together: Tools and Strategies for Sharing Data
and Aggregating Collections
- Sarah Shreeves (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Opportunities for Sharing Metadata Using Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) (Powerpoint Presentation).
- Gunter Waibel (RLG). Where the Rubber Hits
the Road: Integrating Collections from Museums, and Archives Libraries,
(Powerpoint Presentation)
Session 8 - Beyond the Slide Show: New Tools
for Teaching and Learning with Images
- Kathleen Cohen (San Jose State University). Teamwork: Teaching What You Don’t Know (Powerpoint Presentation), San Jose Special Exhibitions Gallery
Other useful links:
- Boston University, Finding Images on the Web - http://www.bu.edu/library/instruction/findimages/
- The Nuts and Bolts of a Digital Plan: From Outline to Final Form, by Lynn M. Lickteig (University of Colorado at Denver) - http://www.cudenver.edu/Academics/Colleges/ArchitecturePlanning/College+Facilities/Digital+Asset+Management+Strategic+Plan.htm
- Library of University of California Images (LUCI) - http://vrc.ucr.edu/luci/index.html
Cataloging
Conundrums
By Jan Eklund (UC Berkeley)
Jan won the following little critter (Sam) at the raffle at the Miami
Beach conference, created and donated by Eileen Fry (Indiana
University).
Ever the uber-cataloger, Jan has catalogued Sam in VRA Core 4.0 from
the following descriptive metadata:
Descriptive Metadata
Artist: Eileen Fry
Title: Sam
Date: 1999
Object type: beadwork snake
Measurements: 19 cm. (W) x 1 cm. (D)
Materials: glass seed beads on plastic snake
Technique: peyote stitch beadwork
Location: Eklund Collection (Berkeley, CA)
Culture: American
Subjects: snakes; Scarlet Kingsnake; Lampropeltis; triangulum
elapsoides; beads
Description: Red, black, and yellow peyote stitch beadwork around
a plastic snake core
Source: Jan Eklund
Image Rights: © Jan Eklund, 2005
Click here to see the map to VRA Core
4.0 (PDF)
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VRA
Adds Own Voice to Orphan Works Comments
By Jane Darcovich (University of Illinois/Chicago) - VRA Intellectual
Property Rights Committee
The Visual Resources Association has filed comments with the U.S.
Copyright Office in support of enacting legislative measures, which
would result in expanding the use of orphan works.
A number of independently submitted comments, including those of the
VRA and the College Art Association (1) endorse a legislative proposal
put together by Professor Peter Jaszi and eight of his students at the
Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic of American
University's Washington College of Law. (2) This proposal calls for a
defense against copyright infringement liability in cases where a
"reasonable effort" is made to find the copyright owner.
The Glushko-Samuelson Clinic formed an initiative named the CCI
(Copyright Clearance Initiative) to deal with the issue of orphan
works. Formed in 2002, the CCI has worked since that time towards
developing a proposal for a legislative solution to this issue that
would allow greater public access to these works.
The orphan works comments submitted by the CCI include a concluding
statement addressing concerns related to fair use. They write
that often it is "gatekeepers" such as publishers, broadcasters and
university lawyers that make decisions against "fair use" uses of
materials. Because of this situation, the CCI hopes that its
proposal, which calls for clear limits, will provide the necessary
assurance against the fear of excessive liability. The remedies
suggested for orphan works, however, are not intended to limit users'
reliance on fair use.
Below are selected examples of other orphan works comments. They
all reiterate the idea that the liability for using an orphan work
should be limited.
Duke Law School, Center for
the Study of the Public Domain
Though the Duke Center supports the concept of a "reasonable effort"
search as a means for a potential user of a work to attempt to locate a
copyright owner, their proposal differs from that of the CCI in that
they recommend (as does Stanford University law professor Lawrence
Lessig (3)) maintaining an online, searchable directory “where it is
easy for users to identify proposed uses and for authors to search for
uses of their works.”(4) They write: “An entity such as a library,
which needs to use thousands of apparently orphan works in order to
create a viable digital depository, should be able to use an extremely
low cost, streamlined procedure, relying largely on notice.” (5) (Full
text of the Duke Center’s comments is available at: http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf)
Public Knowledge
Public Knowledge is a Washington, D.C.- based advocacy group supporting
a vibrant information commons. Their orphan works comments
endorse most of the CCI proposal, but they propose that, as part of a
"reasonable effort search", authors and other creators should be
encouraged to file a public statement of intent to use a work on the
Copyright Office website or some other website. (6) They also
propose that potential users be encouraged to file a sworn statement,
along with a processing fee, setting out the actions they have taken to
find a copyright holder. (7) (Full text of the Public Knowledge
comments is available at: http://www.publicknowledge.org/pdf/pk-comments-on-openworks.pdf)
Free Culture
In their comments, FreeCulture.org, an international student movement,
points out the urgency of not having the orphan works user liable for
court costs, a point addressed in the same manner in the CCI
proposal. FreeCulture.org states: "To use the courts as the
sole solution to the problem of orphan works, even with statutory
exemptions for 'good faith' infringement, still requires subsequent
users to put themselves at risk of having to bear the cost of defending
themselves in litigation. For students - as well as, we suspect,
many individuals and non-profit or educational institutions - that risk
has a chilling effect on new creation. Therefore, an exemption
for reduced liability is not acceptable as a stand-alone solution." (8)
(Full text of the FreeCulture.org comments is available at: http://freeculture.org/orphans/fcocomment.pdf)
The U.S. Copyright Office will post copies of initial Comments received
at: http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/.
Reply comments in direct response to these initial comments may be
submitted before 5 p.m. on May 9, 2005.
End Notes
(1) Full text of the CAA comments are available at: http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/caa_orphan_letter.pdf
(2) See http://www.wcl.american.edu/ipclinic/cci.cfm
(3) Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology
and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. New
York: Penguin Press, 2004, p. 288-89. (Available at: http://free-culture.org/freecontent/)
(4) http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf
Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Duke Law School. Orphan
Works: Analysis and Proposal, pg. 8.
(5) http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf
Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Duke Law School.
Orphan Works: Analysis and Proposal, pg. 5.
(6) http://www.publicknowledge.org/pdf/pk-comments-on-openworks.pdf
Public Knowledge Orphan Works Comments, pg. 6.
(7) http://www.publicknowledge.org/pdf/pk-comments-on-openworks.pdf
Public Knowledge Orphan Works Comments, pg. 5.
(8) http://freeculture.org/orphans/fcocomment.pdf
Orphan Works Comments of FreeCulture.org, pp. 2-3.
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The Gates
Caleb Smith, Columbia University
Caleb photographed The Gates in all its winter splendor, added
descriptions, and made the images available at http://www.columbia.edu/~cs2044/gates/html/gates.html
Image Stuff asked Caleb to write about his reaction to and experience
with this long-awaited installation.

My strategy was to focus as much on
photographing the park, and the Calvert Vaux structures, as on the
Gates themselves. I thought the Gates were beautiful - the way the
orange color punctuated the drab New York winter, the way the light
passed through the swaying fabric. But for me, it was less about the
Gates per se, and more of a celebration of Central Park. Many of
us (millions) got an excuse to explore parts we'd never seen
before. And it was a Grand Event, an "only in New York" event. It was
amazing to see masses of people, in the middle of the winter, wandering
around every pathway. The most out-of-the-way places were thronged with
people. There were a lot of smiles- I even saw a wedding! (Note: tossed
rose petals!)
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Positions Filled (New Column!)
Long-time members will recall the "Positions
Filled" column from early issues of the VRA Bulletin. In the last
several months, numerous job opportunities have been posted to
VRA-L. If you have accepted a new position or know of someone who
has, please contact Marlene (mgordon@umich.edu)
with the information. Please include contact information and a
brief biographic statement on the individual.
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Chapter News
New England
The New England Chapter will be meeting on Friday, May 20th at the RISD
Museum (http://www.risd.edu/museum.cfm)
in Providence, RI. The program will begin with a continental
breakfast during which we will offer informal demonstrations of three
FileMaker-based, New England-developed cataloguing databases: Iris,
Snapdragon, and VireoCat. The main event will focus on
Cataloguing Cultural Objects (http://www.vraweb.org/CCOweb/index.html).
This will be split into two parts, the first being an overview
presentation CCO and the second being a more informal discussion and
question and answer session led by Elisa Lanzi, one of the CCO
editors. There will then be a catered lunch followed by our
business meeting. Finally, attendees will have options for tours
of exhibits and/or projects at the RISD Museum and possibly Brown
University's digital program. For more details and updates, please
visit http://www.faculty.umb.edu/kristin_solias/vrane/05_05.htm.
And look for the chapter website to move to vraweb.org in the very near
future!
Upstate New
York
The Upstate New York chapter's spring meeting is now planned for
Friday, May 20th and will be held at the New York State College of
Ceramics in Alfred, NY. Mandy Economos is our host and is planning a
wonderful program. Kindly mark your calendars and stay tuned for more
details as the date approaches.
If
you would
like more information on any of the other regional chapters, please
contact the appropriate chapter chairperson. A list of the
chapters
and contact information is posted on the VRA website (www.vraweb.org/organization/chapters.html).