October 1, 2005, vol. 2, no. 5
Image Stuff
Home
Editorial and Technical Staff:
Marlene Gordon (University of Michigan-Dearborn)
Dana Felder (Cooper Union)
Steve Kowalik (Hunter College)
Trudy Levy (Image Integration)
Contributions to Image Stuff are due the 20th of the month before the issue. Please send your copy in ".doc" format
Table
of Contents
Changes to IS
Memo from the President
Awards
VRA Viewpoints aired at Berkeley Roundtable
New Features In MDID2 Version 0.5.0
Books, Articles and More
Positions Filled
Chapter News
Welcome, Dana, Steve and Trudy
Dana Felder, Slide Curator at Cooper Union, Steve Kowalik, Librarian at Hunter College, and Trudy Levy at Image Integration begin their terms as part of the editorial and technical staff of Image Stuff for the October 2005 issue.
Dana attended Vanderbilt University where she received an M.A. in Art History. Initially, she worked at the Vanderbilt Art Library. Later she received an MFA in painting from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Dana has held positions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Columbia College in Chicago and Cooper Union. She has also earned an MLS from Pratt University. Dana participated in SEI 2005.
Steven Kowalik has been the Art Librarian at Hunter College / CUNY since 1981. He was a co-founder of the VRA's Greater New York Chapter, and as well its Secretary/Treasurer for two years. He currently serves on the VRA Membership Committee. At the 2004 VRAconference, he presented a paper describing Hunter College's participation in testing an early version of the ARTstor digital library.
Trudy started Image Integration in 1994 to help her fellow architects find and use their images. Since then she has concentrated on cultural or educational organizations, anywhere she can find a librarian or curator responsible for creating the digital collections. She has been active in the VRA on both the local and national level, currently serving as Chair of the Membership Committee as well as conducting numerous panels and workshops.
Memo from the President
By Kathe Albrecht
Special Bulletin #14
SB14 is being readied for printing and release in the upcoming months. I'm sure that all our members, myself included, will want a copy of Strategies for Transitioning to the Age of Digital Media by Sarah E. Cheverton and Christina B. Updike. The volume is full of useful information and has an accompanying cd with more tips and strategies. Watch for publication details in the next few weeks.
Summer Educational Institute (SEI)
As you have no doubt heard, SEI 2005 was a tremendous success! The 2005 program at Duke University built on lessons learned from SEI 2004 and the planning team streamlined many of the Institute's ongoing processes. SEI 2005 enjoyed full registration, enthusiastic participation, and the dedication of talented instructors. But the work of the SEI team did not stop on the last day of the 2005 Institute when students and faculty headed home. SEI Leadership has been hard at work making plans for next year's session at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. We'd like to announce that Karin Whalen, who has been involved with the SEI project since its inception, will serve as VRA SEI co-chair for the next two year term. VRA and ARLIS/NA co-chairs share the leadership of this joint project and the terms of office are staggered to ensure continuity of that leadership. Maureen Burns will step down as VRA co-chair in September of this year, after completing her term. Trudy Jacoby will continue to serve one more year as ARLIS SEI co-chair. Many thanks to Maureen for an excellent job and a warm welcome to Karin!
Midyear Reports and Response from the Executive Board
One major summer task for the Executive Board is to read, discuss, approve, and respond to all committee, chapter, and appointee midyear reports. Many thanks to all those VRA leaders who submitted excellent reports on the activities of their respective groups. This is an active organization and the Board appreciates all the hard work of our members.
Image Stuff
All issues of Image Stuff are now available online. A decision was made at the midyear Board meeting to display Image Stuff in the open area of the vraweb.org site (no longer in the Members Only section). By opening up the publication, the larger community will be able to check out the latest and greatest activities of our organization
SE Region Action
Our Southeasterly colleagues, including Emy Nelson Decker, Frank Jackson, John Taormina, Chris Hilker, and many others, are discussing the possibility of forming a VRA Southeast Chapter. A preliminary meeting will be held at the Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC) in October in Little Rock, Arkansas. Colleagues interested in being a part of the preliminary planning group of regional colleagues, please contact Emy directly at edecker@uga.edu
VRA Poster
The official VRA poster is being sent to print this month and will be distributed to schools in the fall. Many thanks to the Membership Committee for generating a comprehensive list of Library and Graduate Programs for poster distribution.
Professional Status Survey Ad Hoc Committee Formed
VRA's last professional status survey was conducted in 1999 and has served as an excellent insight into our status as a profession. Today, VRA members and the outside community are clamoring for an update of this important survey. The VRA Board has convened a Professional Status Survey Ad Hoc Committee to develop a survey instrument over the next months. Core members of this team will include Chris Hilker and Margaret Webster (co-chairs) and Jeanne Keefe. In preparation for the survey, we will be testing the MemberClicks Survey capabilities with a short mini-survey to be conducted later in the year.
Membership Renewal Period
The renewal process is well underway. The packets went out to the membership on September 1st. Membership Services Coordinator Liz Edgar Hernandez is overseeing the process, however, individual members will be able to renew online themselves this year. Information in the mailing includes instructions on how to register online, important information on the officer candidates and their personal statements, and a ballot for the election of three new officers. In addition, a letter from the Development Committee explains our fundraising efforts.
Awards
By John Taormina (Duke University)
Nancy DeLaurier Award
The Nancy DeLaurier Award, named for one of the pioneers of the visual resources profession, annually honors a visual resources professional for distinguished achievement in the field. "Achievement" is measured by immediate impact, and may take the form of published work, oral presentation, project management, software development, technology application, website creation, or other outstanding effort.
Nominations are now being solicited for the 2006 VRA Nancy DeLaurier Award. A dossier, consisting of a cover letter from the nominator describing the nature of the achievement, the candidate's curriculum vitae, and supporting letters and documentation, will constitute an appropriate nomination. Electronic nominations via e-mail or fax will be accepted only if all supporting documentation may be submitted in that format. Members of the VRA Awards Committee, upon reviewing submitted dossiers, may recommend up to two recipients of the Award in any given cycle; recommendations are subject to approval by the VRA Executive Board.
Although nominations are initiated by Visual Resources Association members, the nominees need not be members of the organization. Nominations should not include current members of the VRA Awards Committee.
Nominations are due to the VRA Awards Committee Chair at the address below no later than October 15, 2005:
John J. Taormina, Dept. of Art and Art History,
Duke University, Box 90764, 112 East Duke Building,
Durham NC 27708
ph: 919-684-2501, fax: 919-684-4398,
e-mail: taormina@duke.edu
Nominations will be reviewed until November 15, at which point recommendations will be made to the Executive Board. Public announcement of the recipient(s) will be made at the Members' Reception at the 2006 VRA Annual Conference, March 6-11, 2006, Baltimore, Maryland. Please feel free to consult with the committee chair for advice on compiling a nomination submission.
Distinguished Service Award
Each year the Visual Resources Association honors an individual who has made an outstanding career contribution to the field of visual resources and image management. Nominees must have achieved a level of distinction in the field either through leadership, research, or service to the profession. Someone could also be considered who has shown outstanding innovation, participation, or project management.
Nominations are now being solicited for the2006 VRA Distinguished Service Award. A dossier, consisting of a cover letter from the nominator describing how the nominee meets the criteria, the candidate’s curriculum vitae, and supporting letters and documentation, will constitute an appropriate nomination. Electronic nominations via e-mail or fax will be accepted only if all supporting documentation may be submitted in that format. Members of the VRA Awards Committee, upon reviewing submitted dossiers, may recommend one recipient of the Award in any given cycle; recommendations are subject to approval by the VRA Executive Board.
Although nominations are initiated by Visual Resources Association members, the nominees need not be members of the organization. Nominations should not include current members of the VRA Awards Committee.
Nominations are due to the VRA Awards Committee Chair at the address below no later than October 15, 2005:
John J. Taormina, Dept. of Art and Art History,
Duke University, Box 90764, 112 East Duke Building,
Durham NC 27708,
ph: 919-684-2501, fax: 919-684-4398,
e-mail: taormina@duke.edu
Nominations will be reviewed until November 15, at which point recommendations will be made to the Executive Board. Public announcement of the recipient will be made at the Members' Reception at the 2006 VRA Annual Conference, March 6-11, 2006, Baltimore, Maryland. Please feel free to consult with the committee chair for advice on compiling a nomination submission.
VRA Viewpoints Aired At Berkeley Roundtable
By Jane Darcovich (University of Illinois/Chicago) - VRA Intellectual Property Rights Committee
VRA Intellectual Property Rights Committee member Christine Sundt participated in the Orphan Works Roundtable discussion held August 2nd at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where she spoke on behalf of the Visual Resources Association, College Art Association and independent artists. The Berkeley roundtable discussion was one of three held this summer to gather further information and hear new perspectives on issues related to Orphan Works, part of the U.S. Copyright Office’s year-long study of this issue.
In addition to Chris Sundt, other participants familiar to the visual resources community included Dr. Kenny Crews, an IUPUI School of Law faculty member and Associate Dean of its Copyright Management Center, and Brewster Kahle, Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive. The roundtable session was chaired by Jule Sigall of the U. S. Copyright Office.
In her comments, Sundt articulated a number of concerns and issues faced by those who work within the academic environment. She explained how the academic and library communities, in the face of unknowns and uncertainties, take a cautious stance on copyright issues, one which avoids taking risks. Potential users of orphan works in these communities are often advised to stay away from using works where uncertainly about the copyright owner exists.
In the academic realm, there is often little access to legal advice on issues of copyright, and solutions are needed which are both clear and easy to implement. Reiterating that the culture in the academic visual resources world is vastly different than that of the motion picture industry, Sundt articulated a scenario where individual cases could be resolved differently depending on the user community and the requirements of the rights holder:
The point that I wanted to make has to do with being flexible in what the outcome is. In other words, it might be a attribution that would satisfy, it might be a payment, it might be a negotiation.
I think the bottom line here is negotiation and what fits the scenario rather than a set outcome…. 1
She also reiterated the broad goal of seeking a balance between the rights of the owner and the rights of users.
Sundt called for “grassroots efforts” on the part of the various professional associations to begin gathering information from their members to help create registries of creative works. This would help those of us who work in visual and creative arts fields to more easily identify copyright owners, and serve as a step in alleviating the problems posed by orphan works. As well, she remarked that these same professional organizations should be consulted about putting together ethical guidelines for dealing with issues such as orphan works.
In the afternoon session, a lively discussion ensued on a number of topics. These ranged from the notion of the importance of providing attribution for a work, when possible – an idea raised by Chris Sundt, to the notion of “piggybacking” – that is, the idea that once a “reasonable efforts search” has verified that something is indeed an orphan work, that others can then benefit from that initial search and re-use that work without having to conduct a new search for a rights holder.
The U.S. Copyright office will now begin to create their report on the Orphan Works issue, based on written comments submitted earlier this year, supplemented by the additional information gained in these roundtable sessions.
Transcripts of the Berkeley roundtable discussion are available online in both PDF format, and as audio(mp3) files.
The U. S. Copyright Office website also has links to both the Berkeley and Washington D.C. roundtable sessions .
1 http://www.law.berkeley.edu/institutes/bclt/events/orphan_works/0802LOC.PDF, p. 251
New Features In MDID2 Version 0.5.0
By Christina Updike (James Madison University)
Developed at James Madison University, the Madison Digital Image Database (MDID) software brings the digital image library into the teaching and learning process. The MDID software is available for download. The MDID wiki website provides a forum to share information with the user community. Since the first release in 2001 many institutions have implemented the software with their own digital image collections.
With the recently released 0.5.0 version, MDID2 users can share collections with each other, giving institutions instant access to previously unavailable image collections. After the installation is complete, you will have access to all the following new features.
Remote collections
Remote collections allow you to access image collections on other MDID2 installations or other supported systems. To gain access to most remote collections, you will have to contact the support person for the MDID2 server that hosts the collection. A list and description of shared collections is available.
JMU now has four collections with almost 4,000 images available for sharing with other institutions that use MDID2 release 0.5.0 or newer. We want to thank Allan Kohl of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and Kate Monger, Curator of the JMU Madison Art Collection for sharing these collections.
Image eXchange (NIX)
The NASA Image eXchange (NIX) is a web-based search engine for searching one or more of NASA's online multimedia collections and is available in MDID. Searching is performed using keywords. NIX returns thumbnail sized images, textual descriptions, image numbers, links to higher resolution images, and links to the organization that stores each image. This service is an initiative sponsored by the NASA STI Program toward linking many existing photo databases in NASA. Currently, not all NASA photos are online, and not all NASA photo databases are linked to NIX. Minimum technical standards for a photo database must exist at a center for it to be linked to NIX. An Agency Subgroup is working to increase the scope and number of photos in NIX.
If your institution owns a collection of images that can be shared or a collection that is in the public domain in your MDID installation, follow the steps on the MDID website described under “Sharing a Collection.”
Collection Groups
With the availability of remote collections, the number of collections available to instructors could be large at some institutions. Collection groups allow you to combine collections with similar topics or coverage into a group that can then be searched as one unit.
Personal images
Up to version 0.4, instructors could only upload their own images into a predefined "personal collection". After upgrading to 0.5.0, this personal collection is no longer special; the instructors' ability to upload images is rather managed with a new permission that can be granted to any local collection. Personal images will still be hidden from other users unless marked as "shared", and the ability to share images is also managed with permissions.
This change allows instructors to add their personal images to the most appropriate collection available to them and to take advantage of that collection's catalog structure.
Suggesting and moderating images
A common concern about instructor's personal images is that often those images should really be part of the regular content of a collection, but granting instructors curator privileges to allow them to add images directly to a collection is not feasible. This new feature allows instructors to suggest individual personal images for official inclusion in a collection. A curator can then review the suggested images and accept or decline the inclusion and, if accepting an image, immediately edit the cataloging data or move the image to another better suited collection. The image then becomes part of the collection and no longer is a personal image belonging to the instructor. Retrieved from "http://mdid.org/mdidwiki/index.php?title=Upgrading_to_version_0.5.0"
MDID Survey
We would also like to remind everybody of the ongoing MDID user survey many of you have already responded; thank you!
If your institution or organization is using MDID or thinking about implementing the software, please take a minute and complete the survey. All submissions are confidential.
Christina Updike, Visual Resources Curator, James Madison University
Andreas Knab and Kevin Hegg, Software Engineers, James Madison University
Books, Articles and More
By Kristin Solias, (University of Massachusetts-Boston)
While news items, articles, reports, and even books of interest pop up on VRA-L fairly frequently, I thought it might be useful to have a column in Image Stuff dedicated to such topical publications. In future columns, I plan to focus on recent and/or "core" readings on specific topics, such as the workflow of digitization or pedagogical use of images. For this inaugural column, I'll introduce a few of my favorite periodicals and a couple of books that I have recently been reading, or re-reading.
First Monday
While the original idea of this open-access, peer-reviewed monthly
journal was to be solely devoted to the Internet, it now offers articles
that may stray slightly from the Internet or at least may not be
entirely devoted to it. For instance, in his recent article "Multimedia
that matters: Gallery–based technology and the museum visitor," Scott
Sayre discusses which qualities are most important for developing
successful gallery-based interactive interpretative media. One of his
findings provides a useful reminder for many situations: content, type
of media, quality of production, and target audience must all be matched
appropriately to achieve effective results. In other words, always
remember your user.
Sayre, S. (2005). Multimedia that matters: Gallery–based technology and the museum visitor. First Monday, 10(5). Retrieved May 15, 2005 from http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_5/sayre/index.html.
Cataloging & Classification Quarterly
Published by the Haworth Press, this journal frequently uses guest
editors for themed issues co-published as monographs. Patrick Le Boeuf
of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, for example, edited Number 3/4
of Volume 39, which is also available as Functional Requirements for
Bibliographic Records (FRBR): Hype or Cure-All?. An essay I found
particularly interesting in this volume was Tom Delsey's "Modeling
Subject Access: Extending the FRBR and FRANAR Conceptual Models." In
it, he examines the subject attribute in the FRBR/FRANAR models and
looks for ways to expand on them in the British Library's PRECIS: A
Manual of Concept Analysis and Subject Indexing and the Getty's Art and
Architecture Thesaurus. He also brings up ICOM's CIDOC model as a
possible source for further elaboration of the IFLA models.
Delsey, T. (2005). Modeling subject access: Extending the FRBR and FRANAR conceptual models. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 39(3/4). pp. 49-61.
Library Hi Tech
An Emerald Group quarterly focusing on information technology issues in
libraries, Library Hi Tech frequently has articles relevant or directly
pertaining to imaging and images. A recent article by Katherine Wisser
provides a case study of a collaborative model for developing consistent
metadata for a statewide cultural heritage digitization program.
Wisser, K. (2005). Meeting metadata challenges in the consortia environment: Metadata coordination for North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online. Library Hi Tech, 23(2). pp. 164-171.
portal: Libraries and the Academy
Also a quarterly, this Johns Hopkins University Press journal takes a
broad look at libraries in higher education, offering articles on the
roles and status of library staff and the library's function in the
academic institution as well as closer looks at particular types of
collections or specific issues in new technologies. While there have
been numerous useful and interesting articles from the past two years,
I've chosen to go back to the April 2003 issue for my example.
Mirroring the four tests of fair use, "Academe, Technology, Society, and
the Market: Four Frames of Reference for Copyright and Fair Use" takes
two scenarios for use the use of copies, classroom and research, and
explores them through the four lenses listed in the title and relevant
court cases.
Metcalfe, A., Diaz, V. and Wagoner, R. (2003). Academe, Technology, Society, and the Market: Four Frames of Reference for Copyright and Fair Use. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 3(2). pp. 191-206.
Art History After Modernism by Hans Belting
Originally published in German in 1995, this revision of The End of the
History of Art? addresses "art" and art history as a discipline at the
end of the 20th century. Though the focus is on contemporary or at
least 20th-century art, the chapters/essays touch on issues faced by
catalogers of images of works of visual and material culture. Many of
our terms for describing these works come from outmoded art histories.
Terms for style, period, and culture, for instance, are often products
of a Euro-centric model of art history which does not, in many cases,
even accurately reflect the European tradition much less those of other
cultures. The re-examination of what constitutes "art" — even the value
of that term — is an important matter for image catalogers to take up or
at least to keep in mind as they choose their own terms for describing
and representing works depicted in images.
Belting, H. (2003). Art history after modernism (C. Saltzwedel, M. Cohen, & K. Northcott, Trans.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Image Retrieval: Theory and Research by Corinne Jörgensen "The purpose of this book is to review relevant literatures in several areas: human perception and cognition, the psychology of art, library and information science, and computer science and related fields." In just 275 pages (OK, not including the back matter), Jörgensen manages to accomplish exactly what she sets in the preface. While it may be couple of years old, and new work in these fields is constantly appearing, this is the best overview I've found to all of the various methods being used or explored for image retrieval, from human-generated indexing terms and schemas to natural language processing to content-based retrieval. Regardless of what type of images you work with, if you haven't read this, you must.
Jörgensen, C. (2003). Image retrieval: Theory and research. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press.
If you have comments you'd like to share on any of these journals, articles, or books or if you're wondering what I've been reading on a particular topic, please feel free to contact me (kristin.solias@umb.edu) and I'll do my best to incorporate your comments or topic suggestions into future columns.
Positions Filled
By Gretchen Tuchel (University of Chicago)
The Visual Resources Collection at the University of Chicago welcomes Juliet Riley as the new Assistant Director. Most recently, Juliet worked as the Library Director at the Corcoran Gallery and College of Art and + Design in Washington and was Visual Resources Coordinator at the same location. She earned her MLS at the University of Maryland and a B.A. in Art History at George Mason University. Juliet brings great technical and managerial skills to the VRC and also has quite extensive experience in the Web industry (so look for an updated VRC web page for U of C soon!).
Great Lakes Chapter
The Great Lakes Chapter held its fall meeting at Michigan State University on Friday, September 23, hosted by Sue Morris, Curator of the Visual Resources Library. Mr. David Gift, Vice-Provost of Libraries, Computing and Technology and Professor Thomas Berding, Chairperson of the Department of Art and Art History spoke on the intersection of art, technology, libraries and instruction at Michigan State University. Sue Morris, and Alex Nichols, Digital Imaging Specialist conducted a tour of the Visual Resources Library and Digital Imaging Lab.
The lunch and business meeting was held at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center. Jan Simpson, Curator Emerita of the Visual Resources Library at MSU was the chapter’s special guest. Astrid Otey, Slide Curator at Miami University, gave a presentation of the “10 Principles of CCO” (Cataloging Cultural Objects). The meeting continued back at the Kresge Art Center’s Computer Lab where Eleanor Mannika, Visual Resources Curator and Assistant Chairperson, Department of Art, Indiana University of Pennsylvania presented "New Tips and Tricks for Art Imaging".
New England
The VRA New England and Upstate New York Chapters will be hosted by Megan Battey, Visual Resources Curator, at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT on Friday, October 21 for a joint Fall Meeting. Susan Jane Williams, Data Specialist and User Services Liaison with Saskia Ltd/Scholars Resource will lead a workshop on implementing CCO and the VRA Core 4 metadata schema within a relational database. We will tour the Middlebury College Museum of Art and the new state-of-the-art college library. In between workshop and tours, we will hold our business meetings and discussion/demonstration groups on topics of interest to the attendees.
Those of us who stay overnight at the historic Middlebury Inn will be treated to a morning tour of the campus led by resident architectural historian Glen Andreus and an afternoon hike led by our hostess Megan Battey.
Please note that due to limited space, this meeting is open only to current members of the New England and Upstate State New York Chapters.