Developing Digital Resources for Art and Design Teaching:

1
Developing Digital Resources for Art and Design
Teaching The NCAD Digitisation Project Marta
Bustillo LIR Seminar 2006, Trinity College Dublin
LIR HEAnet User Group for Libraries
2

• Overview
• Summary of different stages of project.
• Some aspects of the project examined more
  in-depth sourcing digital images, technical
  aspects, choice of image management system, and
  metadata schema.
• Introduction to web interface of the NCAD Digital
  Image Library.
• Re-assessing the service from Slide and New
  Media Library to Visual Resources Centre.
• The future.

3

• Project Timeline
• Nov. 2002 Slide and New Media Library at NCAD
  given task of researching introduction of digital
  image service as alternative to slides.
• March 2003 Team of MLIS students from UCD
  proposes to produce a feasibility study for
  digitisation project for NCAD Slide Library.
  Report delivered in April 2003.
• April 2003 Preliminary digitisation report
  presented to NCAD Library Committee Meeting and
  college management.
• November 2003 Digitisation bureaus approached
  for quotes for digitising slides. Test images
  sent to be scanned, with disappointing results.
• February 2004 Research on possible sources of
  art design digital images, including Saskia,
  Courtauld Colour Slide Scheme, CAMIO, Bridgeman
  Art Library, ArtStor, Corbis, SCRAN.
• March 2004 onwards Staff training in image
  capture and optimisation, metadata for digital
  images, and image management systems at the
  Technical Advisory Service for Images TASI in
  Bristol.
• May 2004 Comprehensive Digitisation Project
  Report delivered to NCAD management. Includes
  advice on equipment, software, metadata
  standards, image suppliers, staff requirements,
  etc. Image management system recommended
  Extensis Portfolio.
• May 2004 Approval given for initial stages of
  project equipment, software, and purchase of
  digital images.

4

• Sept. 2004 - Jan. 2005 Equipment, software and
  furniture for project delivered. 1700 digital
  images of artworks and architecture purchased
  from commercial vendor Saskia.
• April 2005 TASI hired as consultants for setting
  up the Portfolio database and training staff to
  use it.
• April - June 2005 Metadata from commercial
  vendors amended and images data imported into
  Portfolio catalogue. Customisation of catalogue
  and creation of controlled vocabularies and
  authority lists begins.
• June 2005 Slide Library staff approaches Irish
  institutions including Chester Beatty Library,
  IMMA, National Museum and National Gallery re
  sale of digital images for teaching purposes.
• August 2005 Part-time staff member assigned to
  digitisation project.
• November 2005 Dedicated server for Portfolio
  Netpublish web interface purchased.
• February 2006 The NCAD Digital Image Library
  goes live on the Visual Resources Centre page in
  the NCAD website, together with links to the
  CAMIO library and to Bridgeman Education.

5

• Sourcing Digital Images
• Nature of NCADs Slide Library collection not
  all our image needs can be supplied by just one
  source. Variety of approaches required
• Annual subscriptions to electronic image
  libraries CAMIO Library (from October 2004) and
  Bridgeman Education (from October 2005).
• License agreements with commercial digital image
  vendors Scholars Resource and Courtauld
  Institute. Further research on image vendors
  ongoing
• Scanning of NCAD slides. Currently researching
  outsourcing scanning process.
• Donations of digital images from NCAD staff and
  students.
• Ongoing discussions with Irish institutions,
  looking for educational digital image packages of
  Irish art and design for teaching purposes.
  Institutions contacted National Gallery,
  National Museum, IMMA, Chester Beatty Library,
  Crafts Council of Ireland. Also contacted
  Archeire/Archiseek websites on Irish
  architecture, asking for educational package of
  digital images of Irish buildings. Very mixed
  responses.
• Discussions with British-based AHDS Visual Arts,
  to explore the possibility of incorporating some
  of their images into our database.

6

• Technical Implications of Different Image Sources
• IMAGE QUALITY Different sources have different
  standards of image size and resolution. Whenever
  possible, NCAD tries to incorporate into database
  jpegs at 72 ppi resolution and a minimum size of
  1530 pixels on the longest side, with archival
  originals in TIFF format and 3072 pixels in size.
  
• NCAD slides are scanned at very high resolution
  2400 ppi for archival purposes.
• Images purchased commercially or received from
  donations can usually only be obtained at screen
  resolution, ie 72 ppi, and their size varies
  enormously. Archival-quality images at very high
  resolutions can only be obtained commercially by
  paying a premium per image.
• FILE NAMING Each image supplier or donor has
  their own file naming system.
• Portfolio database incorporates two FileName
  fields, one for the original filename, and an
  alternative field to cater for the possibility of
  having to rename purchased or donated image files
  to conform to the NCAD standard.
• NCAD-scanned files kept in folders organised by
  year. Files named according to month of creation
  6-digit running number ie 8.3 standard, which
  will help to calculate annual and monthly image
  creation statistics.

7

• Metadata Standards and Image Management
• METADATA STANDARDS Both the MLIS student teams
  feasibility report, and TASI during their
  consultancy in April 2005 recommended using a
  Dublin Core- based metadata standard, which would
  be flexible enough to incorporate metadata from
  many different sources.
• Standard Chosen VRA Core, created by the Visual
  Resources Association in the U.S., adapted to
  suit the requirements of our Image Management
  System.
• Cataloguing standards based on guidelines from
  the VRAs guide, Cataloguing Cultural Objects.
  Metadata vocabularies used Gettys ULAN, AAT and
  TGN Library of Congress Authorities and TGM
  British Museums Materials Object Names
  Thesauri ICOM Vocabulary.
• IMAGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM Extensis Portfolio.
• Advantages Unbreakable link between record and
  image highly customisable unlimited number of
  fields can be added at any stage of the project
  automatically retrieves technical data from the
  images simplicity and clarity of web interface
  inexpensive software.
• Disadvantages Flat database one record per
  image authority lists and controlled
  vocabularies have to be maintained manually in
  text files, and imported into database regularly
  limited search capabilities of web interface
  require constant repetition in cataloguing.

8
Examples of Portfolio cataloguing screens
9
Search page, NCAD Digital Image Library
Search page with Class drop-down list visible
10
Results page for Michelangelo in Creator Name
field
Detail page for Michelangelos David
11
Home page, Visual Resources Centre at NCAD
12

• From Slide and New Media Library to
• Visual Resources Centre
• The Digitisation Project has
• Introduced demands for training and new
  technology for NCAD lecturers.
• Made images of art and design more widely
  available to all departments in the college.
• Changed the remit of the Slide Library, from
  being an object-based service, to a digital
  resource finding service. Digital images are
  sourced from a number of different providers, and
  offered to NCAD students and staff in a
  centralised form through the Visual Resources
  Centre page.
• Transition strategies
• Slides still available for borrowing by staff and
  students.
• New workstation installed in Slide Library, to
  facilitate students downloading images from the
  databases. Workstation as a showcase for the
  images being added to the NCAD Digital Image
  Library the screen saver runs a continuous slide
  show of images from the collection
• College-wide email campaigns, offering training
  sessions in the use of the NCAD Digital Image
  Libraries for both staff and students, have been
  highly successful, with weekly training sessions
  for all college departments from January December
  2006.

13

• The Future
• Results page for KeywordIrish. Only 66 results,
  images purchased from the Courtauld Institute and
  donated by the Bank of Ireland art collection
• Sourcing of Irish Images Contact other similar
  services in Irish universities, and lobby the art
  institutions together to get them to supply
  digital image packs for the study of Irish art
  and design.

14

• Creating a database of artwork and design pieces
  from NCAD degree shows and by NCAD lecturers.
• Discussions with other digital image collections
  such as AHDS Visual Arts, for possible
  collaboration.