Digital Images and Art Libraries in the Twenty‐first Century

Citation

Keary, M.Y. (2005), "Digital Images and Art Libraries in the Twenty‐first Century", Online Information Review, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 433-434. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520510617965

In this series of essays information professionals describe some of the problems they faced in creating digital image collections, and use these same experiences to plan for the development of a future digital global museum.

The first four papers look at types of art materials that may be suitable for digital access and preservation. These include: photographs, architectural archives, slide collections and artists' files. The articles discuss the aesthetic value and storage of a university's major photographic archive, considers the long term maintenance of historical and contemporary architectural archives, describes the conversion of a conventional slide library into an in‐class digital teaching and learning tool on art history, and looks at various strategies for the exploration of artist's files.

Co‐operation and collaboration are considered to be the most important elements in creating and providing well‐organized and easily accessible digital information, and two large co‐operative digitization ventures are described. The first is the development of ArtSTOR, an in‐progress digital public utility that responds to the needs of an international community of scholars, curators, teachers and students of art history. It also aims to create a secure regulated, networked space that respects intellectual property rights and encourage “fair use” of digital images. The other paper presents an overview of a state‐wide digital image database of art and architectural resources, the OhioLINK Digital Media Centre (DMI).

The last five articles in this collection look at some of the conflicting issues that must be resolved before building a digital global museum. These include the use of legal precedents concerning information access on the web, and how filtering software (“censorware”) can prevent users from viewing art images that they are accustomed to seeing in print sources. This questions the validity of the statement that viewing art reproductions on museum web sites whets the audience's appetite for more art, and proposes instead more creative ways to stimulate museum attendances, rather than presenting the viewer with digital surrogate images of the museum's collection.

Finally, the role of librarians in developing strategies for the delivery of digital images is examined. Access strategies and various definitions of “critical mass” in reference to image delivery are discussed. This is followed by a broad and thoughtful overview of the profession, with a view on whether the advent of image digitization is changing art librarianship. This begs the question as to whether art librarians are truly in a new world or are seeing the evolution of a profession as it learns to use and take advantage of new tools.

The aim of this book is to help art librarians to better understand some of the complexities involved in creating digital image collections, as well as facing issues that may help to resolve problems relating to the digital global museum.