While digital technology now offers extraordinary access to images, providing innovative educational resources and tools, the transition from analog to digital also poses real challenges. Financial and technological hurdles make it simply impossible for a single individual to accomplish the transition to a digital system. Collaboration between key players within any institution is essential to success. The major connections to be made are with department faculty, visual resources specialists, instructional technologists, and with the administration. Developing a digital image library requires extensive funding, collection development, and ongoing maintenance. This document provides a brief overview of the different stages of this process.
Establishing collaborative relationships is the only way to construct a digital image database effectively. The idea that one individual can take what may be thousands of slides and transfer them into a digital system is not a feasible option, in terms of content or quality. Drawing on the assets and expertise of the entire educational community will not only make this transition smoother, but also ensure that all participants become stakeholders. The four key groups that need to collaborate in this process are the department faculty, visual resources specialists, instructional technologists, and the administration. Each area's input, expertise, and influence will be vital in the successful transition to a digital system.
As the primary end-users, department faculty are experts in teaching and research, and will have valuable suggestions regarding system and equipment requirements. It will also be important to gauge their respective levels of interest and support to carry out the change from analog to digital. Faculty can provide a beneficial source of knowledge on content acquisition and cataloguing criteria, and help promote the new initiative on campus.
Visual resources specialists will oversee collection development and establish cataloguing standards. Acquiring images from a variety of sources for incorporation into the digital library, they will also gather accurate information and verify image quality. Since issues of hardware, software, and design are so complex, the third key player, the instructional technologist, will need to work closely with the visual resources specialist. Their insights concerning systems maintenance and support will ensure a straightforward transition into the digital realm.
To gain the support of the university administration, it is important to demonstrate that the new system will benefit the entire academic community. Given that images are now key components of so many disciplines, you could consider creating a working group with representatives from various departments to advocate for the adoption of a digital system. Emphasizing the shared importance of images and the collaborative relationships that will be created will also support your case. Introducing the concept of centralizing such a system within a specific learning center, such as the library, will clearly strengthen your initiative.
James Madison University's development of the Madison Digital Image Database (MDID) illustrates the various levels of collaboration and development involved in a campus wide digital transformation and offers a good example of this transition from analog to digital. Initially, the Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) awarded an internal technology grant after hearing members of the Art History department's ideas for an online digital database. After securing funding and receiving input from the Art History faculty, selecting source content and identifying search criteria, the new digital system began development. While the faculty helped determine the basic content, the CIT created an MDID project team. This working group used their technical knowledge to scan images, determine characteristics of the system, train end users, and deal with copyright and security issues. As more faculty members began using MDID, and the resources and tools connected with the system grew, so did the need for technology classrooms. These were subsequently funded and installed by the Department of Media Resources. Throughout this entire process, surveying faculty and students, the primary end users, ensured the creation of a system that meets the changing needs of the campus community. MDID's development continues to the present day making the transition to digital an ongoing transformation.
The first step in building a collection is deciding how best to acquire images. Incorporating existing digital collections from faculty members and supplementing these with digital images created on a copystand is probably the most useful approach. Commercial options, which can be used to build up a collection quickly, include subscribing to image databases such as CAMIO and ARTstor, and purchasing from vendors including Scholar's Resource. To further increase an image collection, you will also want to integrate open content sources and the growing bank of images shared by different institutions. Once images are acquired, cataloging standards must be utilized. The time and resources involved here will depend on the available manpower.
The question of how digital images will then be shown in the classroom depends on the resources your institution is willing to devote to the necessary hardware and software. When deciding on an effective teaching tool, it is important to answer questions about your ultimate goals. Is online access for students needed and will faculty want the ability to search, retrieve, and group images for classroom presentations? While the commonly used Power Point program can show images, it lacks sophisticated organizational, searching, and presentation tools afforded by applications like MDID, Content DM, and Almagest. The needs and desires of faculty and students will help determine the best image delivery system.
The equipment needed for classroom use includes servers, high-speed computers connected to high-speed network connections, and high-resolution projectors, and is expensive. In addition, the development and upkeep of the new digital library will require slide scanners, flat-bed scanners, digital cameras, copy stands, and scanning/digitizing work stations. Once again, emphasizing the benefits of a campus-wide digital program can help justify these costs.
It is important to realize from the outset that transitioning from slides to the realm of digital media will not initially save an institution money. This shift is less about cost, and more about increased ease of use, flexibility, and access. It also has important implications for the stability of the medium, and for connecting institutions and users worldwide.
According to a recent study done by Yale University, the cost of adding one digital image to a collection is approximately $12.00 (Susan Jane Williams, Per Unit (Image) Cost and Labor (Sample from Yale, 2002 at http://www.vraweb.org/diag/resources.htm)). While the photography and cataloguing of a slide is less expensive, the ongoing maintenance and associated labor costs greatly offset any initial savings. In addition, as long as you regularly upgrade the storage medium, digital images have an archival permanence that slides lack.
Developing a digital image system will establish an enduring educational tool easily accessible by the entire campus community. The hours and funding required to successfully transfer from analog to digital are extensive. However, by creating collaborative relationships from the beginning and continuously emphasizing the campus-wide benefits of this initiative, the transition to a new way of teaching and learning, and ultimately seeing, can be accomplished.