Past ARLIS/NA conference sessions sponsored by VRD

New York, NY   April 17, 2004

Corey described the situation that led up to his becoming the VRD Moderator. Giovanna Jackson was 2003 Moderator, and Susan Miller was 2003 Moderator Elect.  Giovanna resigned her position in July due to personal reasons; Susan then became Moderator until she resigned in November 2003.  Corey was asked to serve as Moderator in February, 2004.  The Visual Resources Advisory Committee (VRAC) was disbanded in 2003, and the VRD inherited some of the tasks of VRAC.  The new VRD description was rewritten by Giovanna Jackson, Jeanne Brown, Margaret Webster, and Corey Schultz, and is posted on the VRD website.

Corey asked for a volunteer to serve as the Incoming VRD Moderator: Jenni Rodda volunteered and was accepted.  Corey announced the formation of a VRD listserv.

Trudy clarified that she is looking for information, not providing information.  She has heard that AMICO will cease to exist by Summer 2005.  She has learned that the AMICO image files are not currently available for downloading, meaning that images found in AMICO can not be used by faculty in web pages or digital presentations unless they use Insight as the presentation module.  She the following questions:

·         Are you or your institution downloading AMICO files into a local database? Positive responses came from Art Images for College Teaching, Cornell, Princeton. 

·         Are institutions depending on AMICO as a teaching resource? Gregg Most replied that AMICO will probably be taken over by ARTstor.

·         Will institutions be able to download images from ARTstor?

·         Is AMICO useful?  Yes, especially teaching courses in history of photography. AMICO is also useful as a component of digital image aggregations.  Commentaries in AMICO are especially useful for students.

In the past, the VRD sought to create a conference travel award for VR personnel.  Corey brought up the topic at the meeting.  The results of the discussion are as follows: the idea of a VRD travel award had been brought to the ARLIS/NA Executive Board who thought it might be counter-productive to have an award for a specific type of librarian.  The consensus of opinion was to bring the idea back to the Development Committee.  There are many reasons to support this idea. Primary among them is that VRD has been loosing membership and attendance to VRA. This would help counter that trend.

Maryly thanked Dan Nolting, VRD web master, for his additions to the History of the VR Profession web page. It now includes some photos of early picture libraries, and will soon include bios for Luraine Tansey and Dmitri Tselos.  Maryly called for more images and bios of important people to the VR profession, such as Betty Jo Irvine, author of the book, Slide Libraries.  Christine Sundt recommended that we contact Nancy DeLaurier, now retired but still actively writing histories, involved with MACAA (Middle America College Art Association), VRA’s predecessor, the Slide Buyers’ Guide.  Beth Dodd is the SAA (Society of American Archivists) visual resources liaison.  Maryly would like to see us develop enough online resources and information about the history of our profession that we could create a time-line showing, generally speaking, when various visual resources media collections were developed and discarded, important VR initiatives such as the AAT cataloging guidelines, Ancient Site Names project, the VISION project, etc.

Jenni Rodda reported on the North American Lantern Slide Survey (NALSS), a joint project of ARLIS/NA and VRA, initiated by Maryly Snow and Jenni Rodda at the joint ARLIS VRD meeting in St. Louis, 2002, the year of the joint ARLIS/VRA conference.  Phase 1 of the survey, data collection, will be extended to Sept 1. 2004. Phase 2 revision of entries, will run from September through December 31, 2004. We will try to report on preliminary findings by the next conference, but a more realistic date will probably be 2006.

Maryly stated that lantern slide collections are a rich source of material to be digitized, as slides created before 1923 are in the public domain.  Chris Sundt mentioned the value of mounted photograph collections as well.

Reviving the tradition of the ARLIS/NA incoming President and incoming Vice President (who also serves as the liaison between the ARLIS/NA board and the Visual Resources Division), Margaret and Jeanne introduced themselves. Margaret called for conference proposals from VRD for the ARLIS/NA annual conference in Houston 2005. Due date for proposals is May 31, 2004.  Any VRD special funding requests are due to Lynda White, ARLIS/NA Treasurer, also by May 31, 2005.  Minutes of the VRD meeting are to be sent to Ted Goodman and Dan Nolting.

Jeanne discussed ARLIS/NA’s process for revising the Strategic Plan, citing the Strategic Plan forum after the ARLIS/NA Annual Membership meeting.  She discussed plans under way to revise the ARLIS web site by undertaking a review of both content and navigation links, under the aegis of the ARLIS/NA Publications Committee, chaired by Jack Robertson.  She also informed us that this is the largest conference attendance ever, with over 700 attendees, including exhibitors, and a large number of international attendees.

Ideas for conference proposals were generated:

·         Images in course management systems.  Christine Sundt felt this would be appropriate for an ARLIS session at CAA, as we need to be teaching our faculty.

·         Discussion of an ARLIS/AN Occasional Paper on teaching faculty how to use digital images.  Betsy Peck Learned and Ann Whiteside are proposing a VRA2005 session on teaching faculty. This session could be reprised as an ARLIS/CAA session or merely as an ARLIS session, or both.

·         The digital initiatives workshop at VRA, presented by Trudy Levy, and Howard Brainen, could be revised and restructured into a session: integration of procedures when managing both analog and digital collections: tools we use; successes and failures; etc. A set of building blocks for digital initiatives, both in-house and consortial agreements. 

The first resurrection of MACAA and VRA’s “slide summer camp” will be held this July 2004 at Duke University, jointly sponsored by ARLIS/NA and VRA.  Earlier concern over whether the summer institute would loose money or not has been allayed by the quickness in which registration filled up, 8 working days.  Mark Pompelia was responsible for the web site, Leigh Gates and Jenni Rodda for publicity. Joan Taormina, Gregg Most, Margaret Webster on curriculum.  After the SEI is over, they will post materials covered on their website.  Question of how to handle the existing waiting list will be addressed after the conference.  Aim is to make the first summer institute successful. Then the committee will decide whether to do more than one or expand according to space availability.  They project to generate an income of $12,000.  The 2005 SEI will also be held at Duke University.

·         No consortial pricing will be available for three years, which many felt was problematic, as the pricing is high at a time when libraries are cutting their expenditures.

·         Price is quite expensive for collections that are still funded by departments, not library systems. 

·         ARTstor will have restrictions on use, such as downloading images to local serves.  

·         Because ARTstor is following the JSTOR model, it will eventually spin itself off from Mellon support by bringing in money for the endowment to make it a persistent resource. 

·         One person commented that 384 x 384 image file size is easy to download but is not suitable for projection. If you’re using a T-1 line, ARTstor is okay, but painfully slow on a dial-up.

·         There are duplicate images of various quality in ARTstor, as there are 8 or 9 charter collections, including Illustrated BARTSCH, Carnegie Arts of the U.S. 

·         The weak side is copystand imagery.

·         ARTstor wants to cluster duplicate images but hasn’t yet.

·         Do we continue to build individual collections, or do we begin developing digital consortiums?

·         20th c. isn’t included yet. 

·         A new client is in testing phase to make local collections of ARTstor, to enable side by side projection, larger images, downloadable, and adding local resources.  It still isn’t suitable for projection yet, everyone says, but we saw Amy Lucker presenting comparisons of Harvard Via and ARTstor images. 

·         Students at testing institutions love ARTstor as a reference tool, not a teaching tool. 

·         Many institutions are holding off on starting their own digital projects, hoping that ARTstor will meet all their needs. 

·         There are no price breaks for contributors.

·         One advantage to subscribing now is that there is a permanent 15% discount for institutions that subscribe in 2004.

Via e-mail in the weeks following the VRD’s New York City meeting, Corey Schultz, Moderator; Jenni Rodda, Moderator-Elect; and Maryly Snow, scribe for the formal meeting, discussed with Giovanna Jackson, past Moderator, ongoing issues of importance to the VRD’s members.  The idea of a VRD travel award was revisited, and ideas for ensuring continuity of leadership were exchanged.

            It has been suggested that the leadership of the VRD be changed, to include a third officer—Secretary—responsible for minutes and any needed correspondence.  The Secretary’s term would extend for one year (conference to conference), at which point the Secretary becomes the Moderator-Elect, and a new Secretary is chosen.  It is understood that this change in leadership requires approval of the ARLIS Board; please consider this a request for such approval.

            Proposed job description:  Secretary shall take minutes at all VRD meetings; shall be available to fill in for the VRD Moderator or the Incoming Moderator as needed;
shall be available to consult with the VRD Moderator and Incoming Moderator throughout the year on issues as they arise; shall succeed the following year to Incoming Moderator, and the year thereafter to Moderator, assuring VRD of continuity.

Minutes taken by Maryly Snow