February 2007 vol. 4, no. 1
Home for
Images, The online newsletter of the Visual Resources Association
Editorial and Technical Staff
Editor:
Marlene Gordon (University of Michigan-Dearborn)
Associate Editors:
Steve Kowalik (Hunter College) Chapter News
Elizabeth Darocha Berenz (Roger Williams University) Books, Articles
and More
Brooke Cox (DePauw University)
Anne Norcross (Kendall College of Art & Design) Positions Filled
Technical Advisor:
Trudy Levy (Image Integration)
Contributing Editors:
Jane Darcovich (University of Illinois at Chicago) Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights
Jacquelyn Erdman (Florida Atlantic University) Digital Scene and Heard
Alex Nichols (Michigan State University) Tech Tips
Contributions to Images are due the 15th of the month before the issue. Please send your copy in ".doc" format and Ariel font
Introducing Images
Notes from the President
Digital Scene and Heard
Intellectual Propert News Summary
Positions Filled
Tech Tips
Upcoming Conferences
Chapter News
Welcome to Images, the online newsletter of the Visual Resources Association. Renaming the newsletter was timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the VRA. All of us at Images hope that some of you will submit articles or news that address issues that all of us deal with daily. Submissions can be sent to the appropriate Associate Editor or the column editor listed above. Please send all others to mgordon@umich.edu.
Notes from the President
By Macie Hall (John Hopkins University)
As I am sure most of you by now are aware, 2007 marks the 25th year of the Visual Resources Association. We are marking our Silver Jubilee anniversary throughout the year, but our annual conference in Kansas City will be the focal point of that celebration. If you have not yet registered for the conference, please take a look at the conference web site http//www.vraweb.org/conferences/vra25/. Register now to take advantage of the on-line registration reduced rate of $175, as the on-site registration rate is $195. On-line registration ends on February 16, 2007.
The conference program features a variety of sessions, seminars, workshops, vendors exhibits, and special events. I want to highlight a few of these below.
In Memoriam Commemoration at our Members Dinner
The Silver Jubilee Committee has many exciting things planned for the conference. At the Members Dinner we will be celebrating our past, honoring our founders and leaders, and presenting our annual Association awards. We would like to include at this event a reading of names of our colleagues who have passed away. We need your help increating this list. Please submit names to Marcia Focht at mfocht@binghamton.edu.
Mentors Program
Marcia has also asked me to mention that we will again be running the Mentors program at the conference. There was a check box on the registration form to be a mentor or, for new members and first time conference attendees, an option to be assigned a mentor. If you missed this opportunity on the registration form, and are interested in being a mentor or in being mentored, please contact Marcia, still at mfocht@binghamton.edu.
Birds of a Feather Lunches
Past President Kathe Albrecht has organized a new feature for this year’s conference: Birds of a Feather lunches -- issue-oriented lunch groups hosted and facilitated by VRA professionals, specifically but not exclusively geared toward new members of the organization and first time attendees. The lunches will be Dutch-treat and held in the Oak Room restaurant at our conference hotel. Information about sign up will be posted on VRA-L soon.Here is a taste of what will be offered: The Future of the VR Field, hosted by Rebecca Moss, University of Minnesota (VP for Conference Arrangements) and Trudy Jacoby, Princeton University; The MDID2 Program, hosted by Christina Updike, James Madison University and Heather Seneff, University of Washington, Seattle; Job and Career Issues, hosted by Betha Whitlow, Washington University in St. Louis (outgoing VP for Conference Program) and Macie Hall, Johns Hopkins University (VRA President); Unique Issues for Small Schools in a Big World, hosted by Linda Reynolds, Williams College (outgoing VRA Secretary) and Allan Kohl, Minneapolis Institute for Arts and Design (incoming VRA President) and The Analog to Digital Transition, hosted byTrudy Levy, Image Integration and Kathe Hicks Albrecht, American University.
Tours
Kansas City has much to offer and taking advantage of our tours offers an easy way to see what’s happening outside of our conference hotel. Please take a look at the tour descriptions on the conference web site: Tours. Tours will include visits to the Nelson-Atkins Art Gallery and the Kemper Gallery, the Jazz Museum and Hallmark’s Visitor Center, a driving tour of Kansas City, and a trip to the Independence, home of President Harry Truman.
If you have already registered and want to sign up for a tour now, you may still do so. From the conference web site, click on the link for registration and log in. You will either edit your first receipt or fill in the contact information on the first page again, but register ONLY FOR ADDITIONAL EVENTS OR TOURS. A new receipt is generated by this new transaction. Carefully review your selections before submitting the form, as members may not delete any part of their registration or credit a transaction. If you have questions about adding an event or tour please contact VRA Secretary, Linda Reynolds at Linda.A.Reynolds@williams.edu.
I hope to see you in Kansas City for what I know will be an exciting and fun-filled conference. As always, feel free to contact me by e-mail or phone if you have questions, comments or concerns. The best time to reach me by phone is late in the afternoon, 4:00 – 6:00 pm Eastern Time, and that is often when I catch up on the day’s e-mails as well.
Digital Scene And Heard
By Jacquelyn Erdman (Florida Atlantic University)
Digital Initiatives Advisory Group
Retrievr
By Jacquelyn Erdman (Florida Atlantic University)
Images are very difficult to search via the internet. Trying to use descriptive words to guess how the person who posted the image tagged it can be daunting. Wouldn’t it be nice to sketch the basic idea of what you want or upload an image and get similar images back? The beginnings of such a search can be found in a search engine called retrievr. This search engine gives the user the choice to search by a sketch or by an image. With the sketch feature, you can choose different pencil widths and colors. It’s very primitive at this moment. Think of the early 90’s MacPaint verses Adobe Photoshop, and if you draw a leaf you might get images of people’s eyes too, but at least the technology is evolving. The image search allows you to upload an image, either from your hard disk or from a webpage. Again, the search results are not exactly great. When I uploaded an image of a girl, I did get landscapes back. This is a technology worth keeping track of and may be useful to integrate into visual resource collections.
Groundwork for a Discussion
By Jacquelyn Erdman (Florida Atlantic University)
The Digital Initiatives Advisory Group will be sponsoring one session and co-sponsoring another at this year’s conference.
The session “from fair use to fair trading: creating a digital image matchmaking commons” will explore whether or not VRA should “facilitate the establishment of a digital image matchmaking commons--a virtual, utopian place where potential partners can publicize goods or discover a good match thereby fostering expanded cooperative endeavors”. Such a commons could provide a space for people to communicate, find collaborators, and share images or information. (Please see the program schedule for Wed.) There will be a large amount of time at the end of this session for questions and discussions. If you have any preliminary thoughts or questions, please feel free to contact jerdman2@fau.edu.
The session “’Is Anyone Using…?’ A Cavalcade of Interoperability Strategies” will feature a series of demonstrations by VR practitioners “showing interoperability solutions with two or more applications.” Strategies and solutions will be presented along with the demonstrations to give the conference participants models to follow. (Please see the program schedule for Thurs.) For more information please contact elanzi@email.smith.edu.
Collection Spotlight
By Jacquelyn Erdman (Florida Atlantic University)
The University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library has a digital collection of very early printed works such as Ephemera, images from medieval manuscripts, and scans of other early manuscripts. These images are available for personal or classroom use as long as there is a citation attributing the image to the Bodleian Library.
Ephemera are items that are intended to have a short lifetime, such as advertising cards, posters, bookmarks, tickets, etc. The Oxford Collection was assembled by John de Monins Johnson and dates between the 18th century to early 20th century.
The Library has digitized early manuscripts ranging from the 8th century to the 17th century. A list of all manuscripts can be found at http://image.ox.ac.uk/list?collection=all.
Please contact Jacquelyn Erdman with any questions or suggestions for future columns. For more information on the activities of the Digital Initiatives Advisory Group (DIAG) see http://www.vraweb.org/diag/index.htm. The Digital Scene and Heard is your connection to news on shared digital image resource initiatives as well as tools, technologies, and funding to support them.
Intellectual Property News Summary
By Jane Darcovich (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Chicago Public Roundtable held by Section 108 Study Group
The third in a series of public roundtables re-examining Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act in light of changes brought about by digital technology was held in Chicago on January 31st. Hosted by the DePaul University College of Law, this roundtable brought together the co-Chairs of the Section 108 Study Group with a panel of over 30 registered participants. * Roundtable discussions focused on three topic areas. The first considered questions surrounding the making and distributing of copies for users, including interlibrary loan copies. The second was the question of including non-text works, or text-based works that incorporate musical or audiovisual works, in the category of works which fall under the exceptions to copyright provided to libraries and archives under Section 108. The third topic area was an inquiry into limitations on access to electronic copies, including via performance or display.
In reply to the first question, whether Section 108 should be amended to reflect changes in the way copies are made (i.e. electronic documents rather than photocopies) Mary Case, University Librarian at the University of Illinois at Chicago made the point that libraries rely on the exceptions for libraries provided in Section 108. She felt that a provision in the law expressly stating that digital copying is allowable for purposes of interlibrary loan, would not result in a sudden exponential rise of interlibrary loan requests, and that the worry about a vastly increased volume of digital copying for purposes of interlibrary loan is exaggerated.
Dwayne Buttler (University of Louisville Libraries) expressed that as a general principle, the copyright law in this area should not be overly complex. The law should be understandable and usable by real people in real life situations. He felt that people will lose respect for an amended law that adds friction to a process already in place, and suggested that if a more restrictive law is implemented, there may be problems with compliance. Kenny Crews (IUPUI) added that librarians’ and library staffers knowledge of the copyright law is uneven. That is why an amended law that is understandable and makes sense is a primary concern.
Denise Covey (Carnegie Mellon University Libraries) resisted the idea of formalizing the currently existing CONTU guidelines for interlibrary loan. She felt that giving these guidelines the force of law would have a chilling effect for fair use.
Others commented that it is difficult to amend the law to address predicted trends. Technology is moving faster than the law, and if we “over-legislate”, creating a written law which is too specific and detailed, it risks becoming obsolete all the sooner as technology generates new ways of accomplishing needed tasks.
There was some discussion of visual works in the afternoon sessions. Mary Case remarked that there isn’t a strong enough distinction to continue to have non-text items excluded from library exceptions provided in Section 108. Kenny Crews echoed this idea, saying that format as the determinative issue in deciding whether or not a copyright exception may be granted no longer works.
Commenting on a discussion about access to commercial movies, Marybeth Peters, the United States Register of Copyrights, asked why not look to streaming technology (say something that could be viewed by the user, but then would expire in two weeks) rather than providing a copy in their hands?
Susan Carr (American Society of Media Photographers) noted that photographs need to be treated in the same way that print materials are, with regard to respecting copyright. She pointed to the efforts of PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System) to advocate for embedded metadata in photographs as part of its image licensing efforts. However, others remarked that we can’t look to licensing to resolve all our issues with providing access.
The issue of licensing was continued with the last question of the day, when the panel of participants was asked to provide examples of materials where there is no license. DVDs purchased without a license for library collections were mentioned; websites which are considered part of institutional collections were cited, where the only way to provide access is to put them on a server. Discussion revealed that policies in this area are not well developed.
A full transcript of this roundtable session will be made available in coming weeks. For more information on the Section 108 Study Group, visit their website at http://www.loc.gov/section108/
*Jane Darcovich attended the Section 108 roundtable sessions and provided this firsthand report.
Visual Resources Association Speakers at CAA conference in New York
Two members of the VRA Intellectual Property Rights Committee are participating in the College Art Association Committee on Intellectual Property’s conference session Fair Use in the Trenches: When to Seek Permission and When Not To. Ben Kessler speaks on “Fair Use and Visual Resource Collections” and Gretchen Wagner of ARTstor presents a paper on legal aspects of the fair use doctrine.
Upcoming Copyright Conference at Ball State University
The University Libraries at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana are hosting a one-day conference, Digital Trek: To Boldly Explore Copyright in Teaching and Learning on April 11th, 2007. Among the six featured speakers is Kenneth Crews, Professor at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis. Also speaking is Carl Johnson, Director of the University Copyright Licensing Office at Brigham Young University, and a member of VRA’s Intellectual Property Rights Committee.British Reports Recommend Increased Flexibility in Copyright System
Two recent reports consider questions relating to intellectual property in the digital age. The British Academy’s (The National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences) report Copyright and Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences was published in September 2006. The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, the report of a study commissioned by the Chancellor for the Exchequer to examine the current intellectual property framework in the UK, was published in December 2006.
Significantly, both the British Academy and the Gowers Reports support a broad definition of fair use. Both reports call for issuing guidelines on the definition of a reasonable search for orphan works. Such guidelines were outlined in the Academy’s supplementary document Guidelines on Copyright and Academic Research.
Both reports also recommend making it easier to circumvent DRM (digital rights management) tools to allow copying for fair use situations.
Positions Filled
The Bard Graduate Center for Studies
in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture
The Bard Graduate Center recently made two new hires in its Visual Media Resources Department. As of mid-February 2007, Barbara Elam will assume the position of Image Cataloger. Ms. Elam comes to the Bard Graduate Center from the Museum of the City of New York, where she has worked as a cataloger for the last four years, acting as the primary collections cataloger and database administrator of the museum's Argus collections management database. Previously, she worked as a slide librarian at the Walker Art Center from 1997 to 2001. She anticipates receiving her dual master's degree in Art History and Library Science from the Pratt Institute in fall 2008. ohn Blakinger was hired as the Visual Media Resources Assistant in early January 2007. He is a recent graduate of Wesleyan University with a bachelor’s degree in art history. While a student he held summer internships at the Whitney and the Museum of Modern Art.
MacLean Visual Resources Center, Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago
Lindsay Bosch has recently joined the staff as Cataloger in the MacLean Visual Resources Center, Ryerson Library, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Lindsay is a graduate of Northwestern University and earned her Masters in Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute. She has varied, interesting, and pertinent experience working with the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collections in the Flaxman Library of the School of the Art Institute, at the Mary and Leigh Black Museum of Art, and at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago. She will be working to develop the digital image collection and to making these images easily accessible to all at the Institute who use them for teaching, review, and research.
Rhode Island School of Design
Marta Bustillo, currently the Visual Resources Librarian at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin, Ireland has been appointed to the position of Visual Resources Librarian at the Rhode Island School of Design. Marta has been working in the library at NCAD since 1996, and in the position of VR Librarian since 2001, where most recently she has implemented a digitization project for the faculty. She has a BA and Ph.D. in Art History from Trinity College, University of Dublin and will be giving a paper on her specialty, Spanish art, at CAA: /The Count Duke of Olivares, Politics, and the Cult of St. Dominic Soriano at the Court of Philip IV. She will be responsible for the Visual Resources Department in the new Fleet Library at RISD, managing the slide and picture collections, as well as the transition to digital images for teaching. Following her arrival mid-June, she plans to attend the SEI.
Tech TipsBy Alex Nichols (Michigan State University)
How To Deal With Moiré
Moiré is a common problem when digitally capturing images from printed materials, such as books and periodicals. Also known as aliasing, moiré is the name given to patterns (usually stripes) appearing in a scanned image or digital photograph. The patterns can appear in all or just part of the image. They can be light/dark stripes (luminance moiré) or colored bands with equal luminance (chroma moiré). Moiré occurs when the dot pattern that makes up the printed image lines up almost perfectly, but not quite, with the photosite pattern that makes up the camera or scanner image sensor.
Deciding what to do about it depends on what you are seeing. Are you seeing moiré or the dot pattern that made up the original printed image? People often confuse the two.
If the pattern in your scan or photograph looks the same as the pattern visible in the original source under a loupe, then you are seeing the dot pattern used to print the image, not moiré. If, on the other hand, you see stripes, bands of color, or other patterns not present in the source image when viewed under a loupe, then you are seeing moiré.
If you have moiré, there's usually not much you can do about it besides re-shoot or re-scan. (Exception: if you get chroma moiré in a black and white image, simply converting the image to grayscale will do the trick.) If you have dots, the Gaussian Blur or Median filters in Photoshop are sometimes good solutions.
If you are scanning, be sure to use a descreening filter during the scan (almost all flatbed scanning software can do this). If you are capturing with a digital camera, vary the framing of the image in a few different shots. This is very easy if you are using a zoom lens. Just frame as normal, take a shot, then zoom out a little, take a shot, then zoom out a little more, take a shot. Look at all three in Photoshop and pick the best one. Zooming changes the size of the printed dots relative to the size of the sensor's photosites, often throwing the two patterns far enough out of alignment that there is no longer any confusion on the part of the camera.
Note: all of the above methods reduce the resolution of the image, but it is not really a problem because any resolution you see past the point of seeing moiré
Practical Tips for the Classroom Instructor: Get What You Want from Digital Tools (Visual Resources Association sponsored session)
Thursday, February 15, 12:30 PM-2:00 PM
Chair: Trudy Jacoby, Princeton University
Practical Applications for Managing Personal Digital Image Collections
Virginia Hall, Johns Hopkins UniversityThe Tipping Point: Finally, the Digital Classroom! (MDID)
Kathe Hicks Albrecht, American UniversityShould Quality Matter? The Gritty Truth About Images and Art
Christine Sundt, Visual Resources Consultant
WebWise Conference on Libraries and Museums in the Digital World
Stewardship in the Digital Age: Managing Museum and Library Collections for Presenvation and Use
March 1-2, 2007
Washington, D.C.
Midwest Art History Society
Annual Conference
March 28-31, 2007
Indianapolis, Indiana
ARLIS/NA
at the crossroads: inside, outside, past, present, future
April 26-30, 2007
Atlanta, Georgia
SECAC (Southeastern College Art Conference)
2007 Annual Conference
October 17-20
Charleston, West Virginia
Museum Computer Network
Building Content, Building Community: 40 Years of Museum Information andTechnology
November 7-10, 2007
Chicago, Illinois
Greater New York
By Steven Kowalik (Hunter College/CUNY)
Sherman Clarke, head of original cataloging at New York University Libraries, and Chairperson of the VRA-Greater New York Chapter, has received the 2006 Distinguished Service Award from the Art Libraries Society of North America. On behalf of the chapter, I send congratulations to our illustrious leader. For more information, go to: http://www.arlisna.org/about/awards/dsa/dsa_winners.html
Texas
By Merriann Bidgood (University of Houston)
"VRA-TX and the surrounding states (really Oklahoma) are looking for a few people to create interest in this chapter. We need a secretary, a treasurer, a chair, members, the works! If you are interested please email Merriann Bidgood at mrbidgooduhlib@yahoo.com and let’s do something about it. We are looking for donations for the chapter basket."