Starting my second year as VRA President, I was hoping that I would get better at keeping up with the ongoing work. This does not seem to be the case (at least not yet, but I’ll keep trying). There was so much work leading up to the joint conference, I got behind on other work. Upon return, I needed to catch up on other work, only to watch the conference follow-up accumulate. Anyway, the juggling act continues. The Board’s responses to your annual reports are in progress, so expect to see these letters in June and let me know if you need any information sooner. The VRA calendar of events stops for no one, and thankfully, the other Board members are keeping up with their jobs better than I am.

As you have seen, the call for proposals for the 2012 VRA conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has gone out and we hope you are considering joining us there. ABQ is such an exciting venue in a region of the US where a VRA conference has never been held before and it is our 30th anniversary! Therefore, we invite everyone to start planning now to celebrate three decades of VRA together in the beautiful southwest. Our conference venue is the Hotel Albuquerque (http://www.hhandr.com/albuquerque.php), a landmark hotel in the historic Old Town (and they have other properties in Santa Fe that will be offering discounted rates to conference attendees). Cindy Abel Morris, at the University of New Mexico, is leading the charge on the local planning. Now that she has a few Summer Educational Institutes under her belt, she’s ready for a conference. You can obtain a glimpse of what’s in store for us by viewing the wonderful PowerPoint presentation Cindy gave at the recent Annual Membership and Business Meeting (http://www.slideshare.net/event/vra-arlisna-2nd-joint-conference-2011).

Please consider actively participating in the 2012 conference by sending in your ideas through the online proposal form at http://www.vraweb.org/conferences/ 2012Albuquerque-proposal/proposal.php. See the next article for details. This can be as easy as coming up with an idea for a paper or case study or as elaborate as organizing a workshop, session, or special interest group. Or, contact the Education Committee to see what they have up their sleeves in terms of program planning and if they have some partnership opportunities. The 2012 conference theme is “Broadening Horizons” and we will accomplish this only if VRA members step-up to help us do so. The deadline is July 1st and so don’t hesitate contact Steven Kowalik, our new Vice President for Conference Program, at stevenk.vra@gmail.com, if you have any questions or want feedback.

The other big item of business keeping us hopping is transitioning the VRA Bulletin to an electronic journal. In March, I shared the news that the VRA signed a contract with the Berkeley Electronic Press to transition the VRA Bulletin to an electronic journal. This decision was based on the early work of the Publishing Advisory Group (PAG) who diligently researched the options and took a comprehensive look at VRA's full publication program. Bepress came out on top because of their proven track record (11 years of experience with electronic journals), easy to learn and use tools, and excellent support services.

There are many complexities to sort out, but the goal is to commence the electronic version with the 2011 issues of the VRA Bulletin while our current editor, Mark Pompelia, continues to finish up Volume 37. This is an ambitious time frame for implementation, but we are working hard on this transition. The VRA Bulletin will remain a journal that reflects our professional practice and all VRA members are encouraged to contribute to the three issues per year. The Bulletin will remain a benefit of VRA membership, with current content restricted to members-only for the first nine months after publication. Past editions of the VRA Bulletin will be available for free, with open access providing more opportunities for broader dissemination and reach.

I’m thrilled to announce that after a call to the VRA-L for volunteers to fill the electronic journal editorial positions, the Board has voted to appoint Anne Blecksmith as Content Editor and Jason Miller as Production Editor. Anne is currently the Head of Digital Services at the Getty Research Institute and, having recently completed an MLIS at Drexel University, she is ready for a new challenge. She has published her art historical research as well as professional experiences in a variety of journals and contributed to the New Grove Dictionary of American Art and the Encyclopedia of 20th Century Photography. She has presented her research and projects in a variety of professional forums too, including VRA & ARLIS conferences, and served first as Treasurer and then as Chair of VRA’s Southern California Chapter. Jason is currently an Associate Librarian managing UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design Visual Resources Center and has experience using web-based publishing tools, including systems for article submission and distribution. He has an MLIS from Simmons College with a concentration in archival management and an emphasis on photographic materials. Jason has served as Secretary for the VRA’s Northern California Chapter and is an active member of the UC’s Visual Resources Group. The editors’ job titles are pretty self-explanatory in that Anne will be drumming-up content and Jason will be focusing on system support and production. They will adjust their roles as the work progresses to determine how this co-editorship will work best. Both editors are eager to obtain hands-on experience with new publishing tools and look forward to working with the VRA membership on this exciting transition. The electronic editor’s terms are four years, with the possibility of renewal. The Board feels confident that Anne and Jason will manage the electronic journal with great competence and creativity being well versed in VRA tradition, open to new ideas, and so collaborative in spirit.

Since the Minneapolis conference, Anne and Jason have been working with the Board to get up to speed and started on their new VRA jobs. We are communicating with Bepress on pre-production and design issues to set up a Digital Commons site and a linked Visual Resources Association Bulletin site (of course, there will be a link to the VRA web site too). Bepress offers more than support for journals alone, so there is the potential to eventually expand to use tools for other types of publications and activities, such as books, conferences, etc. So, we need a Digital Commons site where any of these publications can launch, including the journal site. For examples of other Digital Commons sites and to learn more about the tools Bepress makes available, please see

http://digitalcommons.bepress.com/. Bepress is providing the new editors, the Board, and the Publishing Advisory Group with online tours so we can better understand the processes and possibilities. Anne and Jason have already attended a Digital Commons webinar on "Publishing Journals in the Digital Commons: Set-up, Launch, and Beyond." Meanwhile, the Bepress design team is working with our initial feedback to mock-up the site, which we should have the opportunity to view and critique soon. Once the design is approved, it should be a quick process to get the system up and running for testing, training, and implementation. So, the electronic editors are now starting to consider the publication calendar, calls for content and assistant editorial staffing. Guidance on these and other pertinent issues is being provided by the Publishing Advisory Group, while the editors continue to work on implementation and approvals with the VRA Board.

So, the great electronic publishing adventure has begun! Please join me in welcoming Anne and Jason to VRA’s publishing leadership. You can expect to learn more as the work progresses.

The Visual Resources Association’s 30th Annual Conference will be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from WednesdayApril 18th through Saturday April 21st in the Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town: http://www.hhandr.com/albuquerque.php.

Proposals are now being solicited for the 2012 program sessions, workshops, papers, special interest groups, and case studies.  All proposals are welcome, especially those related to the 2012 VRA Conference theme of “Broadening Horizons.”

The following link will take you to the conference proposal form:  http://www.vraweb.org/conferences/2012Albuquerque-proposal/proposal.php

• A session is a 90 minute moderated session with 3 to 4 speakers at 20 minutes each followed by a facilitated brief question and answer period.
• A workshop is a 3 to 4 hour workshop to develop skills and experience in the field of Visual Resources, preferably with hands-on activities.
• A paper is an individual idea submission, which will be reviewed for possible grouping into a session.
• A special interest group or a special user group is a 60 to 90 minute informal facilitated group discussion on topics related to a specific community within VRA.
• A case study is detailed information about an individual, small group, or project, generally including the accounts of subjects themselves.  Moderators are encouraged to submit proposals.  Individual case study proposals will be reviewed for possible groupings similar to the session format. 

The quality of conference content depends upon YOUR ideas and contributions.   Use the “Broadening Horizons” conference theme, suggested topics from VRA membership (see below), and your imagination to propose ideas which expand our outlooks beyond that which is familiar.  If there is an area of concern or interest that you feel has not been addressed in previous programs, do consider participating in this process by submitting a proposal.  Moderators may put out calls for speakers within a proposed topic before submission of completed topics.  The VRA Executive Board will be looking for complete, concise and articulate submissions with lists of presenters, when applicable.  Specificity regarding audio-visual needs including live internet connectivity is required. 

To stimulate the creative process, here are some excellent suggestions for proposal themes and topics selected from the post-conference survey responses, listed in no particular order:

• Workflow issues
• Types of institutions (e.g., galleries, museums)
• Budget management and challenges
• Embedded metadata, especially in practice
• Multidisciplinary interaction via expansion beyond traditional disciplines
• Digital preservation
• Video and audio formats
• Non-art based subject cataloging
• Grant writing
• Copyright updates
• Solo curators
• Marketing
• VR professional presence in the classroom
• Using archives in the classroom
• Visual literacy standards
• Mobile technologies
• Defining the VR profession
• Subject indexing
• Communication with IT staff
• Software-specific workshops

Questions about the proposal process and the various presentation formats included in the VRA Conference program can be directed to me at <stevenk.vra@gmail.com>. 

The proposal deadline is July 1, 2011.  I look forward to receiving your proposals!

Luraine Tansey/VRA Travel Awards
Barbara Brenny, North Carolina State University
Whitney Gaylord, University of Chicago
Sonja Staum, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Kelly Smith, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, School of Information and Library Science

The Gallery Systems Travel Award
Sarah Christensen, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

The Kathe Hicks Albrecht Travel Award
Yamuna Ravindran, Royal Academy of Arts, Collections and Library, London

International Award (via Anonymous Donor)
Grainne Loughran, University of Ulster, School of Art and Design, Belfast

New Horizons Travel Awards
Julia Cook, University for Creative Arts, Farnham, England
Maggie Hanson, Portland Art Museum
Anne Hepburn, Pacific Northwest College of Art

New Horizons Student Travel Award
Emilee Mathews, Indiana University, MLIS program

The Davis Art Images Travel Award
Jennifer Kniesch, Dickinson College

Joseph C. Taormina Memorial Travel Award
Jen Green, Plymouth State University

Museums are Both Licensors and Licensees
Museums are both owners and consumers, or licensors and licensees, of digital content.  As such, museums must look at each licensing arrangement from the perspective they are facing in that particular arrangement. A museum may be a licensor and license content they own to another person or entity for use on their website. Sometimes museums are licensees and license the content of others, for example, license an online periodical or database.  Also as a licensee, a museum may obtain a license to use photographs, and then re-license the use of those photographs for use by others either directly or perhaps through a site such as flickr.

Given the unique position of museums, and their sensitivity to both sides of licensing, they should be the perfect negotiators!  Understanding the perspective of the other side in a licensing arrangement is a key step to negotiating a license that meets the needs of both sides.

Issues to Consider in a License Agreement
Below is a list of issues museums should consider whenever entering into a license arrangement.

• Why do you want to license this content?  (On the licensor side, you may want to monetize certain content, or license it to promote your museum online.  On the licensee side, you may want to license the content of others for use in museum research.)
• What are the competitive products to the one you are licensing; and would you be interested in licensing these other ones if you cannot agree on suitable terms and conditions for the initial content you want to license?  (As a licensor, you want to know the content you are up against so you know how to market and price your own.  As a licensee, you want to know the alternative products so you can determine the value of the one at hand in comparison to other similar products.)
• What content are you licensing? Include title, ISBN or ISSN, and a brief description of the content. Do you have or require a sample of the content?  (The more accurately you can describe the content, the less the confusion in the future regarding identifying that content.)
• Do you already subscribe to this same product in print? If so, are there any financial or other advantages to be gained by this? (For example, this may apply to a text publication.)  (This is a licensee question.)
• In what format will the electronic content be provided? On DVD, through the content owner's server, via an Intranet, etc.?  (As a licensee, you need to know how you will be able to access that content.  As a licensor, you have to consider additional choices such a free website or social networking venues.)
• How often will there be updates to the electronic material? How will these updates be delivered?  (Your museum both wants the most up to date content, and wants to be able to provide the most up to date content to others.)
• Does the licensee require any archival rights after the termination of the license?  (As a licensee, you may already have the print version of the content, but if not, you may need to have ongoing access to a digital database, for example, after the expiration of the license.)

"User" Issues

• Who will be using this content? For example, will the users be library staff, other employees, patrons, members, faculty, students, alumni, visiting professors, or the public? How about museum staff?  Will the use go beyond a closed/private network?  (Scope of use may relate to pricing from a licensor or licensee perspective.)
• How will the content be used? Will it be printed, downloaded, stored electronically, e-mailed to others, etc.? 
• What uses will be made of this content? Internal, external, website, Intranet, social networking sites, access through on-premises computers, included in an e-book or e-publication?
• What sort of access is necessary? From a single machine, from a resource centre in a museum, library or educational institution, remote access on campus (or from a different corporate location), in the state/province, country or from other countries?
• How many people must be able to access the content at any one time? How many simultaneous users need to access the content at the same time?

Licensee Issues

• Will authentication of authorized users be necessary? Is the licensee easily and inexpensively able to do this? Will the content owner set this up?
• What mechanisms does the licensee have in place to ensure user confidentiality?
• If the content will be used by your museum’s library, will the library require the need to make a copy for interlibrary loan? Print and/or electronic interlibrary loan?
• How can the licensee ensure the content is used according to the terms and conditions of the license? Keep in mind that it will probably be impossible to police the use of the content by those accessing the content from the licensee's premises.
• What is the licensee's budget for this content? A range may be more appropriate than an exact dollar amount. You may also want to break up the costs into setup cost, storage cost, maintenance cost, etc.  Take into account your budget relating to license negotiations and perhaps lawyers’ fees related to your license negotiations.
• Is any additional hardware or software required in order to be able to access the content, and who would be responsible for related additional costs for these?
• What is your preference for payment schemes? Flat rate, pay-per-use, subscription basis, etc.
• Will the content owner provide the museum with documentation and support for using the content?
• Does the content owner warrant how it will address downtime when access to the content will not be possible? Or if some of the content is removed from the database?

Licensor Issues

• Do you own the content outright?  (If so, then your museum may use the content in any manner it wishes.)
• Do you have a partial assignment of rights or a license that allows certain re-licensing of the content?  What are you permitted to re-license?  Is your permission limited by media, time or geographical location?  (If you own some rights, you may only need to obtain partial rights in your license agreement.  For example, you may have the right to digitally archive images that physically exist in your museum, but you need to obtain the rights to post those same images in Facebook or publish them in an e-book.)
• Do you have a waiver of moral rights (in countries where this is possible) and is this necessary for your particular licensing of the content?

License Issues

• What duration of the license would work best for you?
• Would you want the license to automatically renew?
• Under what circumstances would you like to be able to terminate the license?
• What state/province and country's law should govern the license?
• Are there any special circumstances you need to include in the license concerning this content? (For example, required clauses mandated by law or by internal policies.)

Administrative Issues

• Who will be negotiating the license? Or will it be a team of negotiators (in which case, who is your primary negotiator)? (Did you do your research on the negotiators on the other side?)
• Who will be responsible for ensuring the terms and conditions in the license agreement are met during the duration of the license?
• How will you keep track of this license and manage your other licenses?
• Who will sign the license?  (e.g. legal counsel, accounting representative, museum director or other person?)

Negotiations

In the ideal world, negotiations should be "win-win." In other words, both parties should be satisfied with the end result. This, of course, is not always possible. By being prepared before entering into negotiations and by understanding your needs as well as the needs of the other party, you will be taking the right steps to finding an agreement satisfactory to both sides.

Note on the author: Lesley Ellen Harris is a copyright lawyer, author and educator.  Lesley provides a forum on her blog, www.copyrightlaws.com, for museums and others to ask questions and receive answers to copyright and licensing questions.  Lesley is the editor of The Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter (http://www.copyrightlaws.com/newsletters/) now in its 15th year of publication.  Lesley’s several books on copyright and licensing include: Licensing Digital Content, A Practical Guide for Librarians, 2nd ed. (2009) (http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?id=2630); and A Canadian Museum’s Guide to Developing a Digital Licensing Agreement Strategy, 2nd ed. published May 2011 (http://tinyurl.com/3slymmp.)

Annual conferences are the one time of the year that most committees have the opportunity to meet face to face, and this year’s joint conference in Minneapolis was no exception.  The Education Committee, one of VRA's largest committees, convened in a small conference room one afternoon and welcomed both long-time members and new faces into the fold.  The committee is co-chaired by two energetic women, Meghan Musolff and Beth Wodnick, and their energy in leading the meeting was contagious.  They started off by going over a packed agenda, after which Musolff looked at the members, new and old and said, "We do things!" 

In fact, the Education Committee (EdComm) does many things that you might not even realize they are doing.  The committee's biggest task each year is to generate ideas and proposals for conference programming.  At the Minneapolis conference, four sessions and two workshops were sponsored or co-sponsored by the committee and all of these garnered positive comments from both VRA and ARLIS attendees. Each year the co-chairs of EdComm assess comments and critiques from post-conference membership surveys in order to improve conference content from year to year and continue to meet the needs and current interests of the Association's membership.  Once a list of potential topics is culled from the surveys, EdComm members are asked to contribute their ideas and suggestions and from there different ideas for sessions and workshops begin to form.  This is where the brain power of a large committee truly shines.  Many of the most innovative ideas come from discussion and brainstorming among members.  It will be exciting to see the results of this process in potential conference programs for 2012.

In addition to conference planning, the committee is working to create an established regional workshop program that would bring educational programming to different locations throughout the country.  The idea is to bring one-day, concentrated, topic-specific workshops to multiple locations throughout the year. This will allow those who may not be able to attend the annual conference the opportunity to attend conference-quality presentations closer to home and with less time commitment and travel expense.  Betha Whitlow, immediate past co-chair of EdComm, is heading this initiative with the help of other members of the committee.

EdComm is also in the process of developing a VRA Internship Award, similar to that already offered by ARLIS/NA.  The ARLIS/NA Internship Award often draws from a pool of applicants who are interested in a variety of projects, many of which relate to the core skills that VRA promotes. The goal is to encourage more applicants to apply by combining the application procedures for the two internship awards into one streamlined process. If all goes as planned, the first VRA Internship Award will be granted in fall 2012.

The committee membership is working together on a third project to update and organize the EdComm portion of the VRA website in order to provide members with accurate information regarding educational opportunities that relate to the visual resources field.  There are many opportunities for professional development and personal growth and EdComm would like to bring as much of this information as possible into one organized list that is easily accessible on the VRA website.

If you have ideas for 2012 conference programming or information about educational opportunities that you would like to see listed on the EdComm website, please feel free to contact Meghan Musolff (musolffm@umich.edu) or Beth Wodnick (bwodnick@princeton.edu) with your ideas.

Northern and Southern California Chapters
Karen Kessel (Sonoma State University)

The Northern and Southern California Chapters of the Visual Resources Association are busy planning a two-day conference on digital image collections, to be held at the University of California, Santa Barbara June 16th & 17th, 2011.  Members of the chapters who attended the joint ARLIS/VRA conference in Minneapolis met there together to gather ideas and allocate tasks.  Southern California Chapter chair John Trendler has submitted a grant application to the VRA Foundation to help defray the costs of hosting the conference.

The California Visual Resources Association Conference, also known as CaVraCon, will offer educational opportunities dealing with the many aspects of creating, managing and maintaining digital image collections, as well as the chance to network with both emerging professionals and veterans of the field. The conference will be open to any interested parties, regardless of organizational or institutional affiliation.

While the full schedule of events is still being formed, the program will include the following:

• A workshop with Patricia Harpring of the Getty Vocabulary Program, who will address the application of the Getty authorities and local authorities for describing cultural objects according to the rules established in Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO) and the Getty Center’s Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA).  In addition, she will introduce participants to the Getty’s new Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA), a work in progress.
• A presentation by George Helfand representing Luna Imaging, Inc., on the subject of incorporating images of books into image delivery systems.
• Megan Marler, Senior Analyst for Strategic Initiatives at ARTstor, will present a demo of ARTstor's Shared Shelf.
• Jan Eklund and Chris Hoffman, UC Berkeley, will introduce CollectionSpace, a community-source management system designed to address the challenges faced by institutions stewarding multiple and diverse collections, and will talk about their experience applying this program in the History of Art Department Visual Resource Collection at their campus.
• Metadata wizards Greg Reser from UCSD and Sheryl Frisch from Cal Poly SLO will demonstrate the use of Metadata panels in Adobe Photoshop’s Bridge and how they have customized them to serve the needs of image curators in a hands-on session.
• Tom Moon, of UCSB, will discuss how he introduced cross-polarization techniques into his copy stand procedures, along with basic photographic tools such as camera calibration, color management, filters and filtration, and Photoshop actions in the context of best practices and automating workflow.
• Lois McClean and Rick Tessman, representing McClean Media, will introduce attendees to Content Clips (CC), a free online teaching tool, being developed with funding from the NSF’s National Science Digital Library program.  Its web-based framework can dynamically display multimedia objects from one or more collections to let users manipulate them through a single interactive interface.
• Photographer James Kiracofe will display some of the work he has done that is available to add to our collections.

Updates on the mini-conference will be posted on the CaVraCon website at:
https://sites.google.com/site/cavraconference/

Other Northern California Chapter news: Heather Cummins has resigned as co-chair of the chapter. Karen Kessel remains as the singular chair until her term expires in the fall.  Nominations are being welcomed for election of a new chair at the Santa Barbara meeting.

Pacific Rim Chapter
Submitted by Joshua Polansky (University of Washington)

Ten members from the Pacific Rim Chapter attended the joint VRA+ARLIS/NA conference in Minneapolis in March. We held an informal meeting there to discuss chapter goals and upcoming events. In the spirit of continued collaboration between our two professional organizations, we are extending invitations to our Pacific Northwest ARLIS/NA colleagues when our chapters conduct lunchtime and happy hour meetings in Seattle and Portland this spring.

Two recipients of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation Summer Educational Institute Scholarships are from the Pacific Rim Chapter. Emma Wolman, Digital Assets Manager at the Portland Art Museum and Melissa A. Gill, MLIS student at the University of Washington will attend this year's session in Albuquerque. Congratulations, Melissa and Emma!

Texas Chapter
Katherine Moloney (Amon Carter Museum of American Art)

VRA-TX will move our virtual meeting from spring to late June.  Adrianna Stephenson, head of the Lady Tennyson d'Eyncourt Visual Resources Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, will report on her recent experience at the Summer Education Institute.  The meeting date has not been confirmed yet, but it will be during the last two weeks of June.

The joint meeting with our ARLIS/NA friends at the recent VRA conference was such a success we are going to have a joint meeting in Fort Worth October 27 – 29.  The weekend will include tours of the Kimbell Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, plus other activities unique to the Fort Worth area.  Anyone interested in joining our group should contact Katherine Moloney at katherine.moloney@cartermuseum.org for more information.

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