UC Sliders Summer Meeting 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
UCSF Library
Host: Kathleen Cameron
Meeting Notes: Lena Zentall & Loy Zimmerman
Attendees: Maureen Burns (UCI), Kathleen Cameron (UCSF), Lynn Cunningham
(UCB), Jan Eklund (UCB), Kathleen Hardin (UCSC), Josue Hurtado (UCSF), Madelyn
Millen (UCR), Vickie O’Riordan (UCSD), Jackie Spafford (UCSB), Leah Theis (UCD),
Lena Zentall (CDL), David Ziegler (UCLA), Loy Zimmerman (UCI).
Introductions & Campus Reports (top VRC concerns)
Maureen reviewed campus reports prior to the meeting and summarized campus issues
reported by Sliders. Sliders added comments.
ACTION: Maureen will update Sliders’ contact information from list passed she passed
around for corrections.
Facilities:
Slide usage is declining on all campuses. Space reductions and encroachments have
occurred in some VRCs: UCLA VRC moved to make room for faculty offices; UCI VRC
now has film editing in their Visual Studies lab; UCB-HA lost print storage space to
faculty offices. UCSB and UCSC have retrofit moves in their futures. Further reductions
are likely as foot traffic declines. How much longer until slides are no longer used?
Where will they go? Refer to recent posts on migrating slide collections on the VRA
listserv.
Staffing:
2-5 FTE is the range for staff employees in UC VRCs. Changes are occurring in how
time is being spent by Sliders: more technology issues; photography skills are in demand.
Several VRCs – UCR, UCSD, UCSB, UCB-HA & ED - now have full-time digital
photographers or dedicated digital specialists (working on file management and color
correction). UCI is experimenting with digital staffing by hiring one part-time specialist
to replace their previous team of Work/Study students. Due to changing job descriptions,
some VRCs have successfully reclassed staff members (UCSD, UCB-HA, UCI).
Maureen at UCI is seeking reclassification as an Information Technology Resources
Manager II. Skills needed for students have also shifted, from mostly filing slides to
managing digitization. Kathleen C. uses interns from Library School (San Jose State
University and UCB SIMS). Maureen also gets some interns from Fullerton’s library
school. Some campuses permit summer Work/Study.
ACTION: Maureen will email a copy of her job reclassification to VRCs upon request.
(She passed around a copy and asked VRCs to initial if they wanted a copy.)
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Budget:
Budgets look flat everywhere. New law and medical schools may further complicate
funding at UCI and UCR. Technology equipment is becoming a large portion of VR
expenditures. The group discussed UC’s policy of replacing computers every 4 years.
This does not seem to be universal. Many VRCs receive computers only second hand
from faculty or labs.
Collection Development:
Only Jackie at UCSB is no longer making slides. Others made on average about 200
slides last year. A few are licensing digital images but most waiting for strategic sharing
opportunities. Personal collections are increasingly an issue. Faculty members want all
their images in one place but want VR curators to input it for them. The collections
typically come without adequate metadata. Several point faculty to ARTstor’s personal
collections manager. Maureen is working on policies for what is required from faculty to
make their personal collections part of the VRC collection. UCB-HA has about 8-10,000
personal images and they are using Portfolio Extensis. There’s been a trend toward
digital capture of copystand rather than scanning slides. UCB-HA has begun recalling
source books and doing digital capture directly from source image rather than scanning
slides.
ACTION: Maureen will share her policies (1-page handout) with Sliders on UCIs
requirements on faculty personal collection intake.
ACTION: Kathleen will share her minimum requirements for digital image intake.
Managing Multimedia:
UCSD has good cataloging records for multimedia in their local catalog “Roger”. They
are licensing audio and spoken-word databases. They are doing a trial with making film
clips available in the library (3-minute segments). They have lots of videos available via
interlibrary loan. ARTstor accepts videos in mp3 format. The OIV, however, is not able
to handle media files. This may change in a later version.
Metadata:
Few Sliders are able to implement VRA Core 4.0, but some working towards that goal.
CCO implementation is also ongoing. Most improve pre-existing metadata as slides are
digitized. We all have some messes to clean up as we move to ARTstor. UCSD is doing
a record merger to comply with the mandate for single records. (Trish is working on this
project.)
Technical:
Jackie at UCSB has a new flatbed scanner requested by faculty. Madelyn at UCR has
begun to create some slides from digital images. She scans the image and outsources the
slide production; the cost is about $4.50 per slide.
Workflow:
Kathleen at UCSC is checking ARTstor and Insight before scanning images. Lynn at
UCB manages digital production and quality control for History of Art. She uses a
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system of drawers for each faculty member to store slides at different stages in the
scanning process. Most find designating just one person to oversee workflow is best.
Image Quality:
Silverfast is used by most for driving scanners. Can be used to calibrate and profile
scanners also. Those with digital copystands recommend hiring Howard Brainen when
setting up a new copystand. Sliders discussed the size of images faculty members are
allowed to download/request: Jackie at UCSB provides 1000 and 3000 on the long side in
MDID. Some faculty members want highest resolution image files in order to create
their own details.
Image Delivery:
Sliders transfer images to faculty via DVD, CD, flash drives, Webfiles, and Web
interfaces. Jan also recommends websites such as YouSendIt.com (free) to upload and
transfer files. Madelyn at UCR is using iView, but she’s not completely satisfied with it
and may try MDID. Jackie cautioned that MDID is not easy to implement – there’s not
much documentation for this open source system. The group discussed some ways to
encourage faculty to use image services. Faculty members like the idea of having control
with ARTstor. They can scan their own slides and create shared folders. Lynn converts
PowerPoint’s to PDF and posts them on bSpace at UCB for faculty.
Collection Management Systems:
Most Sliders are using the same old databases but with some notable migrations to new
systems. UCR is using IRIS. David at UCLA will be moving soon from VRMS to a new
database system developed by UCLA Digital Library. David has been working with
Stephen Davison over the past 2 years on a test with 5,000 images. David has a larger
collection of about 50,000 Tiffs waiting to be included: 15,000 Chinese, 9,000 Japanese,
20,000 Mesoamerican and more. The new library system will be Unicode and VRA Core
4.0 compliant. Jackie at UCSB has implemented a MySQL system, but it’s ready for an
overhaul. Leah’s new MySQL system at UCD is up and stable, providing Web-based
image delivery.
Classroom Presentation:
Most faculty members use PowerPoint and Keynote for classroom image presentation. A
few faculty members at ARTstor campuses are using OIV (not always happily). Maureen
gave examples of faculty working with UCI’s Humanities Computing Center to create a
website that uses GIS and another faculty using Flickr to coax her colleagues to catalog
her images. Dual projection is being used at UCD (Almagest). Classroom readiness and
digital projection quality are still issues for some. If projection quality is inadequate,
complaining may be necessary. Cite academic review standards and/or argue that
deficiencies limit enrollment.
Archiving and Preservation:
Most VRCs maintain multiple copies of digital images in various media. Some VRCs
have off-site backups for images. Some are backing up to external hard drives and taking
them home for safekeeping. Support has been spotty for backups and particularly off-site
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backups. UCSD does backups to their supercomputer DAMS but can’t access their
submissions. (It’s preservation only at this time.) Jan recommends using disaster
planning to argue for support and funding of digital image archiving. UC requires plans
be in place to be backed up and running within one month of a major disaster. The only
way VRCs can do so is to have digital assets in a repository backed up and archived
offsite. Jan is currently participating in the Media Vault test project being run out of the
office of UCB’s chief information officer.
Reference/Training/Publicity:
Vickie at UCSD has a picture of the Conversion of St. Paul on her wall with the caption
“Have you converted to digital?” aimed at faculty. She finds that Library workshops
don’t work (timing is bad for faculty) but has been successful doing one-on-one demos
with faculty members. Vickie also teaches instructional classes on VR resources as part
of a required course called “Information Technologies for Art Historians”. Maureen
finished her 11th workshop on Finding and Using Images for Humanitech at UCI. She
produces “quick guides” to get her faculty up and running quickly. Madelyn at UCR is
given time in the Methods classes to train graduate students. Kathleen at UCSC
commented that ARTstor online help is good. Call-in help is available five days a week
from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm (Eastern time). Vickie reported those faculty members who
need help with ARTstor are likely to go to her directly, whereas students will contact
ARTstor directly. Maureen remarked that helping graduate students come up to speed
with digital technologies and use digital images makes them more “marketable” when
they enter the job market. Grad students have a strong incentive to embrace digital
technologies in comparison to faculty who are retiring soon and don’t want to invest time
in shifting from slides to digital. For copyright and permissions help, Jan recommends
Permissions: A Survival Guide, by Susan M. Bielstein.
Q: How does everyone share their instructional information? What are others doing that’s
been successful?
ACTION: Consolidate instructional information for Sliders to share (via Wiki?).
ACTION: Vickie will share the PPTs she has developed on using ARTstor’s OIV.
Assessment/Strategic Planning:
UCSC’s experience indicates that external reviews may help with strategic planning.
New kinds of statistics are necessary to determine usage of digital image delivery
systems. Maureen asked about applications being used to gather Web server use statistics.
Kathleen H. recommended Sawmill.
Campus News of Note:
New UC art history faculty members included one architectural historian, one Byzantine,
one Renaissance, and one American specialist. Two Chinese art historians and two
architecture historians have left or retired as well as one Renaissance/Baroque specialist.
[See also the individual campus reports.]
Collaboration:
Some Sliders are collaborating with library special collections and instructional
technology. Kathleen C. at UCSF is part of a digital assets consortium for health
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sciences schools. She has licensed one digital image collection, the Netter Atlas (human
anatomy). She’s looking at Sakai and Moodle for Course Management Software. She is
building collections, and has a MySQL database with a way for faculty to post podcasts
and vodcasts to either their CMS or iTunes University. She noted that faculty overlay
audio onto their Powerpoint lectures. Josue in the Special Collections Library is working
on finding aids. UCSF has 300 Japanese prints.
ACTION: Kathleen C. to determine if Emily Lin at UCM could scan UCSF’s Japanese
prints? (Though not a high priority action, it would be terrific to have these images in the
UC Shared Image Collection.)
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