April 2012 Vol.9 No. 2
Home for Images, The newsletter of the VRA
Memo from the President
By Maureen Burns Burns (Archivision and IMAGinED Consulting)
President, Visual Resources Association
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Albuquerque here we come! The 2012 VRA Conferencewill find us in one of the oldest cities in the United States, where we can experience the unique multicultural heritage of the great Southwest. What better place than the high desert to be true to the conference theme of broadening horizons and to celebrate 30 years of VRA. A substantive program and a number of very special events are scheduled to provide perspective, expand our minds, and renew our spirits.
We return to a compact schedule with the essence of the programming extending from mid-day Wednesday, April 18th, to mid-day Saturday, April 21st. Don’t miss out on anything in the action-packed, four-day schedulefilled with interesting, timely, relevant information and fun social events. VRA Conference 30 will cover topics of significance, offering some favorite formats—workshops, sessions, special interest groups—as well as new, dynamic conference experiences like the What’s Your Story—VRA Open Mike Night to kick things off. The Opening Plenary features the innovative Todd Carter, co-founder of Tagasauris, a crowd-powered tagging tool that uses the Web as a database to annotate images and other media. At the Closing Plenary, Amy Herman, will share her provocative views on the Art of Perception. A Vendor Slam complete with presentations, exhibits, and refreshments will also see the culmination of a mini-raffle with a few special prizes (raising funds for the Tansey Travel Awards).
Among the social highlights planned is a 30th Anniversary FiestaCelebration in the historic Casa Esencia, the Armijo family hacienda built in 1783, where we will celebrate the distinctive identity of VRA as a professional community (included as part of the registration fee). On the fundraising front, please contribute to the Tansey Travel Awards, an important source of subvention that helps to bring colleagues to conferences ($40 ticket available onlinein advance or at the registration desk). This year we will experience live Flamenco dancing and music by the University of New Mexico dance company, Alma Flamenca. Top off your evening with lively, sensual, colorful dancing and Spanish guitar (desserts and beverages provided).
For those who cannot join us in the Southwest this year, we will miss seeing you in person, but you will still be able to access much of the information. The presentations will be uploaded to SlideShare before, during, and after the conference (link provided soon). Please plan on joining us next year in Rhode Island for the 2013 conference in Providence, one of the first cities founded in the United States, now referred to as the Creative Capital. I feel a theme coming on.
We encourage conference attendees to consider sharing any intriguing information obtained at the conference with the VRA membership in the new electronic VRA Bulletin or Images Newsletter. The VRAB Editors are interested in publishing feature articles (c. 2,000-5,000 words in length), professional opinion articles (c. 1,000 to 3,000 words) on a particular subject or issue of interest, review articles on print publications, lectures, presentations, databases, online collections, software, standards, imaging equipment (c. 250 to 1,000 words), and association news that should be a part of VRA’s permanent record. Conference presentations have always been a particularly welcome form of journal and newsletter content and may only need a little tweaking to be considered for publication—formalizing language, copy editing, adding URLs, footnotes, references, etc.
By the way, the VRAB Editors are currently looking for content from the Minneapolis conference to round out the final 2011 issue. Please send them any items of interest as soon as possible. The VRAB is here to document VRA activities and the work of information professionals in image management, but we need your contributions for the electronic journal to be a success. The electronic format allows for global digital dissemination, full-text search and display, linking to social networks, enhanced discoverability, and increased citation rates that could strengthen resumes, impact professional opportunities, and promote the field of visual resources.
The Publishing Advisory Group would like to know more about your ideas, opinions, and suggestions related to VRA’s publications. They have put together a survey, and we would greatly appreciate your feedback in order to make further improvements to VRA’s publication program, https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VRA_Publications_Survey_2012.
As I prepare to step down as President, I would like to take this opportunity to gratefully acknowledge the hard work and forward thinking of all the VRA Board members I have worked with and to welcome the newly elected officers to the team. It is easy to pass the baton when there are so many capable people to hand it off to. What a pleasure it has been to get to know so many VRA members through the process and to better appreciate the spirit of camaraderie and volunteerism that runs through this organization. Here’s to 30 years of the VRA and many more!
Summer Educational Institute (SEI) 2012
Submitted by Elizabeth Schaub (The University of Texas at Austin)
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The ARLIS/NA-VRAF Summer Educational Institute for Visual Resources and Image Management Co-Chairs have announced the recipients of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation Summer Educational Institute Scholarships for 2012:
- Rachel Appel, Digital Archives Intern and Student, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History,The University of Texas at Austin
- Christine Baczek, Collections Photographer and Digital Media Producer, Utah Museum of Fine Arts
- Christina Benson, Photo Archivist, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
- Abigail Dansiger, Visual Resources Librarian, Academy of Art University Library, San Francisco
- Gabriel Rodriguez, Digital Curator, Center for Art History, Columbia University
The SEI Implementation Team is grateful to the Kress Foundation for its continued support of SEI participants.
SEI 2012 will be held at the University of Michigan from June 19-22. SEI is an intensive educational opportunity intended to provide in-depth instruction in visual resources and image collection management. The SEI 2012 curriculum will stimulate participants’ thinking about intellectual property, metadata, digital imaging, and strategic planning, and includes the opportunity to participate in dynamic, topical sessions based on attendees’ areas of interest.
To register for SEI 2012 visit http://sei.vrafoundation.org/index.html
Digital Scene and Heard
Edited by Elizabeth Meyer (University of Cincinnati)
Digital Initiatives Advisory Group
Guest Editor:
Meghan Musolff (University of Michigan)
HASTAC 2011 Conference
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I attended the annual conference of the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) consortium held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in December 2011. HASTAC is a “network of individuals and institutions inspired by the possibilities that new technologies offer us for shaping how we learn, teach, communicate, create, and organize our local and global communities.”1 This informal consortium of over 8,000 members focuses on a multitude of projects incorporating new technologies in higher education, including work in the field of digital humanities.
HASTAC aims to bring together individuals from a wide number of fields. Attendees and presenters at the conference included higher education administrators, faculty, information technologists, librarians, graduate students, and noted authors, including Cathy N. Davidson from Duke University and Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of The Googlization of Everything.
I attended a number of presentations of interest to the visual resource community. The folks at the Wired! Lab at Duke University presented on the challenges and rewards of working with new technologies in the fields of Art History and Visual Studies. I also heard about a collaborative project between several universities to create an algorithm to analyze image data. In addition, I saw a number of other presentations related to the visualization of information, including an amazing presentation on the analysis of dance movements—neochoreometry.
VRA is now an affiliated organization with HASTAC and I encourage anyone with an interest in new technologies and/or the digital humanities to become a HASTAC member. The organization is free to join and there are numerous chances to become involved in the conversation, as well as learn more about other opportunities in the field of digital humanities.
More information about HASTAC 2011, including links to some presentations, can be found here. Next year’s HASTAC conference will be held in Toronto, Ontario.
1http://hastac.org/about; Accessed March 19, 2012.
Positions Filled
Compiled by Anne Norcross (Kendall College of Art & Design)
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Visual Resources Manager, Lafayette College
Kelly Smith is the Visual Resources Manager for Lafayette College in Easton, PA as of January 2012. Ms. Smith graduated from Georgia State University in 2008 with a BA in History then completed a MA in Library and Information Science from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2011. Previous to her current position, Ms. Smith worked at the Southeastern Branch of the National Archives and Records Administration, the General Collections Conservation Department at UNC and the Harrye B. Lyons Design Library at North Carolina State University where she discovered that the visual resources field was where she truly wanted to work. Her research interests mainly focus on the cross-disciplinary use of images for research and teaching.
Chapter News
Compiled by Trudy Levy (Image Minders)
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Great Lakes Chapter
Marlene Gordon (University of Michigan-Dearborn)The Great Lakes Chapter held its fall meeting at Oberlin College on October 28, 2011. Candidates for the position of Chair, Marlene Gordon and Treasurer, Elizabeth Meyer were announced. An open forum provided an opportunity for attendees to discuss issues that arose at their institutions and ask for assistance. Carole Pawloski discussed her weekly tech talks. Members were able to tour the Allen Memorial Art Museum and the Oberlin Visual Resources Collection with Joe Romano. The chapter travel award was announced and a committee formed to review the applications.
In March, the recipient of the award was announced: The Travel Award committee is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2012 Great Lakes Travel Award, Astrid Mast. Astrid has shown her commitment to the field of visual resources over many years so it is fitting that she receive the chapter's first travel award. Astrid hosted the Great Lakes meeting on May 11, 2001, the first year that she served as Treasurer. Astrid commented on the award and its significance:
"The chapter has always held a special importance for me, in addition to the national organization. Adrienne Varady and I participated in the Ohio Valley ARLIS chapter and furthered our VR interests there, until John Taormina started the VRA/Great Lakes chapter. I have been dedicated to regional connections because, especially in the days before the Internet, the annual workshops which originated in Kansas City and the conference were the only way we could network. I always felt it was important to have a similar means of sharing information and collegiality for colleagues close to us and those who weren't able to get to the national meetings. I am grateful for this travel award, which will allow me to attend the annual conference in Albuquerque."The New England Chapter
Carey Mack Weber (Fairfield University)The New England Chapter will be having a joint meeting with the Greater New York Chapter on Friday, May 11that Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. All VRA members are welcome to attend. Our program will feature several speakers from Yale University – Robert Carlucci, Manager, Visual Resources Collections, Yale University and Carolyn Caizzi, Digital Projects Manager, Yale University Library will be speaking on Visual Resources at Yale: Recent Trends and New Developments and Melissa Gold Fournier, Associate Registrar & Manager of Imaging Services, Yale Center for British Art will be speaking on “Opening Access to Works inthe Public Domain at Yale”. There will be a chance to network over breakfast and lunch, as well as tours of the Bellarmine Museum of Art. If you are interested in attending or would like more information please contact Carey Mack Weber at cweber@fairfield.edu.