Image Discovery & Access
ACRL Image Resources Interest Group
ALA Annual, Saturday, June 26, 2010
Nicole Finzer, Visual Resources Librarian,
Digital Collections, Northwestern University
The Library assumed responsibility for the Visual Media
Collection (Art History Slide Library) in 2007. Digital
Collections then evaluated issues in three major areas of
image discovery and access:
1.Digitization and cataloging
2.Service assessment and promotion
3.Providing tools to make the collection useable
Challenges:
• Expanding services to reach users outside of Art History.
• Convincing users that working with the library to integrate
their images into a centralized system will benefit them.
• Implementing robust and scalable architecture and
descriptive metadata standards to support the Digital
Image Library.
• Completing the digitization of the Visual Media Collection
(Art History Slide Library).
Digital Image Library Implementation Plan:
“The library will implement a web-based tool for
contributing images, allowing users to upload and
catalog their own materials. Once these images are
contributed, they will be vetted for inclusion in the
shared Digital Image Library collections.”
“The goal is to provide a central gateway for images
regardless of discipline, keeping the tools Art
Historians like but expanding or generalizing them to
serve other disciplines.“
Migration is driven by initiating a metadata schema
better suited to item level description.
• Replace MARC with a relational schema.
• Create metadata for images on an item-level basis,
conforming to VRA Core/CCO, and implement
crosswalks to MODS and Dublin Core for cross
searching and Open Archives Initiative (OAI)
harvesting.
Inherited System/Schema: Voyager/Marc
Invited Megan Macken, Director of Visual
Resources in the Humanities Division at University
of Chicago to collaborate on the metadata editor,
and implement the completed tool at both
institutions.
• Metadata Mapping
• Interface Design
• Relational Cataloging
Marc to VRA Core
Marc to MODS
Authorities tool (Voyager):
• Controlled vocabulary lists were licensed and loaded
into the local cataloging environment.
• Clean-up work mapping existing authorities to
controlled lists.
• This work was undertaken as part of a broader
initiative to extend vocabulary control to the cataloging
interfaces that provide data to the repository.
Getty Vocabularies: Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM), Art &
Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), Union List of Artist Names (ULAN),
and the Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN).
The process of managing digitization workflows and
submitting digital assets to the repository is the
Production Support and Delivery System (PSDS).
• Unify intake, digitization and cataloging services
within Digital Collections.
• Simplify intake procedures and develop an outreach
plan to continuously assess faculty needs.
Production Support and Delivery System (PSDS) (Drupal)
Digital Image Library (DIL): Metadata Editor (Xforms)
Relational Cataloging: Image to Work
Delivery Tool (Fedora)
In Development:
• Discovery and display
• Faceted browsing
• Tagging
• Grouping
• Sharing
• Local Authorities
Looking ahead..
The library must work with users from varying disciplines
within the university to identify and ingest the content that will
best serve their needs. Coupling this content with a set of
tools that are better suited for many disciplines, media types,
and metadata schemas use is crucial.
For additional information, email: n-finzer@northwestern.edu