Digital Images and Art Libraries in the Twenty‐First Century

Citation

Silvester, S. (2005), "Digital Images and Art Libraries in the Twenty‐First Century", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 39 No. 1, pp. 84-87. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330330510578886

This comprehensive work surveys the current position in the USA for art library professionals with regard to images in digital form. The editor, Susan Wyngaard, brings together 11 diverse essays covering pretty much all aspects of latest developments in the field (as at 2002/3). The essays are written by leading art professionals, some of whom have first‐hand experience of image digitisation projects. Although the case studies all relate to American institutions, the work is still relevant to British professionals who are currently wrestling with the same issues and debates.

Art libraries have always been distinguished from other libraries by the fact that the material they hold relates to visual artefacts, and library users may come to the library to browse the collection to gain inspiration rather than to seek a specific book or article. The digital environment has added an extra dimension to the work of all library professionals, but in art libraries, because the digitisation includes images, progress has been somewhat slow. Because of the enormous reliance on visual materials in art and the huge quantity of visual material art scholars need, the problem needs to be addressed, and these essays, which appeared simultaneously as articles in the Journal of Library Administration, provide an overview of what is happening in the US. The creation of an image database, whether an in‐house solution or a consortium approach, needs careful consideration, and this book looks at many of the issues. In the final chapter “Evolution of a Profession: The Changing Nature of Art Librarianship”, Amy Lucker asks whether we as art librarians are still doing what we have always done but with new resources, or if the profession itself changed. Are we answering new questions or the same questions with new resources?

The work will prove useful to anyone connected with art libraries or image collections, particularly Art Librarians and Slide Curators in art libraries and art history departments, but also Collection Managers and Directors of Library Services. Students of librarianship who wish to enter the art library profession or staff new to art libraries will also benefit from the book, which adopts a straightforward style, despite the range of subjects covered and the complexity of some of the issues

The editor, Susan Wyngaard, is Head of the Fine Arts Library at Ohio State University and has been an active participant in the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA). One of the essays deals with the OhioLINK Digital Media Centre (DMC), a state‐wide initiative to provide a wide range of media resources, including those relating to art and architecture. In her introduction, Wyngaard compares the advent of digital images with the advent of photography. She points out that the same expectations are involved. Whereas early photography attempted to capture the world to make it more accessible, information professionals in art libraries and in museums are creating and sharing digital resources to the same end. Freely admitting to being an enthusiastic proponent of digital imaging she recognises we have a long way to go to achieve the future of information access, envisioned as a digital global museum for visual studies.

The aim of the book is to consider what we need to know to move closer to the digital global museum and to help us understand some of the complexities involved in creating digital image collections. It also provides evidence of detailed current practice, at the time of going to press. The book can be divided into three sections. The first four essays, forming the first section, discuss types of art materials that might be ripe for digital access and preservation: photographs, architectural archives, slide collections, and artists' files. The second section deals with large co‐operative digitisation ventures, and recognises the need for co‐operation and collaboration as an important element in the creation and accessibility of digital collections. In the words of Angela Giral, “Is it necessary for every slide collection in every art history department in the US (or indeed the world) to laboriously catalog an image of the Mona Lisa or Michelangelo's David?” (Giral, 2000).

Essays cover the development of ArtSTOR and the OhioLINK Digital Media Centre (DMC). ArtSTOR is the digital image initiative of The Andrew Mellon Foundation, the organisation behind JSTOR. Available in the US from Summer 2004, and presently the subject of JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) negotiations for licensing to higher and further education in the UK, it is not only a digital image database of 300,000 images (expected to grow to half a million by Summer 2006), but also provides tools to make active use of these images. The last section looks at issues, which need to be resolved. Topics vary and include: the effects of web filtering software (“censorware”); the question of digital images as surrogates; user acceptance of digital image delivery; and the adoption of standards and controlled vocabularies for cataloguing, the latter being another vital element for collaboration and co‐operation, not only enhancing cross‐searchability, but also important for the pooling of resources across the sector.

The scholarly essays are wide‐ranging, covering technological, legal, theoretical, and practical issues, as well as presenting case studies of particular digitisation projects. All the essays are short but comprehensive with notes, or bibliographies, or both, following each essay. The book can be read in a couple of sittings, but the wealth of material covered, the range of content, and the detailed notes make it worthy of revisiting and exploring some of the topics further. There is a useful index, but a glossary would also have been helpful. To take a couple of examples: if your interest is ArtSTOR there are nine page references relating to four of the articles; if you are interested in the Visual Resources Association's core categories (metadata for defining common elements that can be used to describe works of visual culture as well as the images that document them) there are five page references relating to five articles, but no definition appears anywhere. The assumption is that readers already know.

Some of the issues being addressed by art librarians in the US are issues which in the UK we are just beginning to grapple with. Particularly interesting, I thought, was the question of the development of slide collections. How do we balance the analogue collection of 35 mm slides with the digital image collection? How do we incorporate digital image databases such as the Art Museum Image Library Consortium (AMICO) and ArtSTOR with our own digital images produced in‐house? These are questions currently being asked by UK slide librarians and slide curators (Godfrey, 2004).

We are aware that co‐operation and collaboration, with the necessity for common cataloguing standards, is the key but this book presents us with examples of where this has worked, and we can look at attendant problems. The authors of the essays make references in the texts to British initiatives such as the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) now Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) – Visual Arts. As part of AHDS, the Subject Centre provides collections of visual arts digital resources and offers advice for their creation and use. There are also references to articles by British art librarians and information professionals such as Beth Houghton at the Tate Library and Margaret Graham, formerly Research and Development Manager at the Institute for Image Data Research at the University of Northumbria.

Aside from the consortia approach, the main difference for art librarians here and in the US is the interpretation of copyright law and issues of fair dealing in relation to the educational use of images. James Madison University, for its Madison Digital Image Database (MDID), follows the Educational Multimedia Fair Use guideline developed as part of the CONFU (Conference on Fair Use) which, though not law, offers a reasonable foundation for project development. The situation here is very different with no acceptance of educational use as a special case, and as yet no blanket digitisation licence. In the final essay, Amy Lucker makes the point that the implications of the laws in the US are such that once images start getting disseminated over the internet, institutions become more vulnerable to law suits.

From a British academic art library perspective the only topic not covered by the book is the use of digital images in Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). As so much teaching is now being delivered in this way, it adds another dimension to the online accessibility of art images via secure networks, not only for members of Art and Design Faculties but for other Faculties within the institution who may want to add visual material, stills or moving images, to their web courseware to enhance the learning experience.

We need to understand the problems and concerns in order to work effectively in today's digital environment. The answer to Amy Lucker's question about the developing role of the art librarian is that we are seeing the evolution of a profession as it learns to use and take advantage of new tools. This book offers a good insight into this process. Although written form a US perspective, the essays address many of the issues currently being debated by all those with an interest in the field.