Visual Resources for the School of Art, Design and Art History
DESCRIPTION OF THE VISUAL RESOURCES CENTER
Facilitating and enhancing the study and teaching of art history, art education, aesthetics, and the fine and applied arts at James Madison University is the primary objective of the Visual Resources Center. Its purpose is to provide services and resources for the entire program of the School of Art, Design and Art History; as well as the university at large. Services are also extended to the community on a limited basis.
The Visual Resources Center is located on the second floor of Duke Hall in a two-room facility. The largest room houses the fine arts slide collection (c.90,000), video and CD-ROM resources, computer access to the Madison Digital Image Database (c.50,000 digital images), the print collection, and storage of the School’s audiovisual equipment and photocopy machine for slide checkout. The largest room is separated into work areas, including slide storage, lecture preparation, digital image work stations, and assistant’s work station. The adjoining smaller room serves as the Visual Resources Specialist’s office and the copy photography work area. The Visual Resources Center is adequately heated on the building’s central system and is cooled by three window air conditioning units. This allows for temperature and humidity controls that maintain the fine arts slide collection in an environment conducive to long life.
The Visual Resources Center is open and staffed by one full-time professional Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Full-time faculty and graduate teaching assistants have keys allowing unlimited access to the collections. Two 10-hour student assistants are employed in the VR Center to perform the duties of image/metadata processing, slide refiling, copy photography, library research and clerical duties. One graduate assistant is assigned for 15 hours of work in the VR Center with the duties of digital image creation, image database management, and various research assignments. With funds from a National Leadership Grant by the Institute for Museum and Library Services for “Making Connections: Linking MDID to other Image Systems and Tools” a 1500-hour wage position was established for a visual resources assistant, September 2006-September 2009.
Collections and Budget
DIGITAL:
JMU’s Madison Digital Image Database (MDID) instructional system was developed in 1998-99 with a $45,000 grant from the Center for Instructional Technology in direct response to increased enrollment and instructional needs generated by the new General Education program. The School of Art, Design and Art History was required to shift from teaching ten to twelve sections of the Survey of World Art course per year to instructing a total of twenty-four course sections in the academic year.
The MDID instructional system is composed of two individual components: the digital image database and the ImageViewer used for classroom teaching with high resolution digital images. Approximately 5,500 images are added to the Art, Design and Art History collection annually. The MDID is a secure web site that permits faculty members to generate and package slide shows at their convenience. Instructors search through thousands of digital images, selecting and sorting the images based on a range of instructional criteria. After organizing selected images for classroom presentation, instructors are able to store slide shows for immediate use in class, annotate and edit slide shows, provide online shows for students to review, or archive slide shows for future discussions. Once a slide show has been created, the show may be viewed in class using the second application, the ImageViewer. The Image Viewer permits faculty to download the actual size version of each image in the slide shows they created and project these images in the technology classrooms. The software allows the user to split the screen either vertically or horizontally within a slide show for side by side viewing of images. Each side acts independently with the same functionality as a regular slideshow. Additional keyboard commands allow slide navigation and toggling between the zoom, pan, and show info/hide info features. The ImageViewer can be used by the Macintosh as well as the PC. Assessment surveys are administered periodically to students and faculty. The surveys provide both qualitative and quantitative data, information on redesign activities, and provide information on demographics, baseline statistics, usage statistics and instructional impact.
The copyright issues involved in creating an image database consist of identifying the source of images, crediting the source, and acquiring permissions when necessary. The system is password protected and cannot be accessed from outside JMU’s Intranet. The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, US Code) governs the making of the reproductions of copyrighted material. Under "fair use" conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a reproduction for the purpose of scholarship, research and private study.
On October 10, 2001, JMU released the MDID to the world-wide community as a free download. Since that date, more than 400 universities and colleges, foundations, nonprofit organizations, corporations, government offices, and individuals have downloaded the application for a variety of educational purposes. In February 2003, JMU was the recipient of a $50,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in support of further development of the MDID software. The grant was awarded in recognition of JMU’s important efforts in the area of teaching and learning with digital images, and to support collaboration between MDID and ARTstor, an initiative of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. JMU was one of fourteen institutions invited to participate in the ARTstor beta test period from September 2003-June 2004. MDID2 was released to the public in July 2004. Continuing the tradition of a freely shared educational software resource, MDID2 is distributed under an open source license. New features in MDID2:
A comprehensive informational web site was created (http://mdidnews.blogspot.com/), which outlines the application’s features, documents the current technical infrastructure needed to use it, provides an online demo, and includes the download license. Although no formal technical support is provided on the MDID, a users’ list serve has been developed to foster a community through which users can acquire support.
Most recently, September 2006, JMU was awarded a National Leadership Grant by the Institute for Museum and Library Services for “Making Connections: Linking MDID to other Image Systems and Tools.” This $225,476 grant supports a three year project to further develop the MDID software in the area of interoperability with a variety of different image repositories and presentation tools. The software is being redesigned and MDID3 will begin beta testing this summer 2009. It too will be distributed as open source software to the international educational community.
SLIDES:
The Visual Resources Center contains approximately 90,000 slides still used periodically for teaching and research in the arts and circulates approximately 5,600 slides annually. This teaching collection is utilized by Art, Design and Art History faculty, graduate teaching assistants, staff, undergraduate and graduate students for the preparation of seminar reports, and occasional access by faculty from other departments and community patrons. No new slides have been added to the collection since spring 2005 as the School of Art, Design and Art History has made the shift to teaching mostly with digital images.
Collection development has also included the acquisition of videotapes, laserdisks, and CD-ROMs to supplement classroom teaching and student study.
The visual resources collection is evaluated as part of the accreditation process for the School of Art, Design and Art History. The Visual Resources Center exceeds the NASAD operating norms.
The School of Art, Design and Art History supports the VR Center with an annual budget of $3,000. The funding is used to purchase digital images from commercial sources, imaging supplies, and for the repair and maintenance of the audiovisual equipment.
EQUIPMENT:
The Visual Resources Center is equipped with four networked computer workstations (two are digital imaging workstations, each with a slide scanner, flatbed scanner and DVD read/write burner; one is the assistant’s workstation for metadata creation, and one is the VR Curator’s computer), three light tables for slide viewing, and a copy photography workstation with two Leicaflex cameras and a Canon Digital Rebel camera. Two Caramate viewers are available for administering make-up exams and for viewing slide presentations. A photocopy machine is used for checking out slides and maintaining circulation records. Audiovisual equipment that is available for checkout to faculty for use in studios and classrooms consists of eight carousel slide projectors, one video camera with tripod, two digital cameras, eight laptop computers, two VHS/DVD projection systems on rolling carts, one computer and digital projector on a rolling cart, a 16mm film projector, and a portable digital projector.
Three lecture rooms are equipped for teaching Art, Design and Art History. All three are Technology Classrooms: two with seating for 75-80, and the third is a seminar classroom with seating for 20. All three have network connections, computer workstations with touch screen controls for the digital image and video projection equipment, a document camera, and two slide projectors connected by wireless remote control systems. Two Technology Classrooms are equipped with dual digital projection.
Most recently, a majority of the studio art classrooms in both Duke Hall and the Studio Art Center were equipped with ceiling mounted digital projectors and network connections. Laptops can be checked out to use in these classrooms.
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Christina B. Updike
Visual Resources Specialist
James Madison University
School of Art, Design and Art History
800 South Main Street, MSC 7101
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
540-568-6588, FAX 540-568-6598
Email: updikecb@jmu.edu,
http://mdidnews.blogspot.com/