Presented by Anna Bernhard at the Annual Conference of the Visual Resources Association, March 12-15, 2014 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Session #4: The Teaching Turn: From Static Collections to Dynamic Learning Centers ORGANIZER: Heather Lowe, California State University, San Bernardino (on behalf of the VRA Emerging Professionals and Students Group) MODERATOR: Jasmine Burns, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee PRESENTERS: • Stephen Cardinale, University of Colorado, Boulder • Anna Bernhard, Colorado State University • Molly Schoen, University of Michigan • Chris Strasbaugh, Vanderbilt University Much of the business of creating and disseminating images has moved away from individual academic departments and isolated image collections toward centralized cross-discipline departments. This has left many visual resource centers looking for new ways to engage users and support the educational goals of their institutions. One way centers are meeting these new challenges is by transforming from being a storage silo for physical slide collections to being a collaborative learning space where students and faculty alike can come to work on projects and refine imaging and videography skills. As many resource centers make this move toward more teaching and learning, the physical spaces and skill sets of employees have also shifted. This session will examine case studies of visual resource centers programming that is directed to teaching imaging skills and how this new role is shifting their profile within their institutions.

1. The VRC Practicum:
Educating and Engaging Student
Workers
and, quite possibly, future VR
professionals
Anna Bernhard
Colorado State University

2. Course Description
Art 487: Digital Collection Management
Spring 2014
Using the CSU slide archive as a case study, this
internship will introduce students to the principles of
collection and information management. The
cornerstone of museum and heritage work, the role
of collection management has only expanded during
the digital age. The objective of this internship is to
provide students with professional skills that will help
prepare them for future careers in the art and design
world.

3. Course Objectives
Standards and Objectives: Upon completion of the
internship students will be familiar with:
-The role of collection and information
management within the art world
-The need for evaluation, community studies, and
management of user expectations
-Concepts of budget, planning, and workflow
management
-The creation of collection development policies
(statement of purpose, definition and scope,
deacessing and disposal, copyright policies, local
cataloging standards, etc.)
-Cataloging and digitization procedures

4. Individual Student Expectations
-Cataloging work Our cataloging work is done on Gallery
Systems’ Embark database. While the majority of the
cataloging work will be straightforward data entry, students
will also be included in discussions regarding database
maintenance and formatting.
-Digitizing work Slides and art images will be digitized on
the copy stand in the small dark room in F111. This should
be a fast process. Image manipulation and corrections
should be kept to a minimum and done on the Mac laptops
with Photoshop. Try to get an accurate representation of
the slide image but be prepared to move along through this
process.

5. -Blogging Every week each student is expected to create one
blog entry highlighting an image, a group of images, or a local
images, or a local art event of interest. These blogs will be
blogs will be published on the Wold website under the author’s
under the author’s name.
-Working documents as an alternative to blog entries
students are welcome to help edit and draft CSU’s working
CSU’s working documents, which will be discussed in week two
in week two and three. These documents will eventually become
eventually become official policy and shared with the public.
the public.
-Interview Questions All students are expected to attend these
meetings and be engaged. Readings will be provided prior to the
provided prior to the interview to give students a better concept
better concept of the nature of the work and a better foundation
Individual Student Expectations continued

6. Workflow
Stage Two:
Cataloging &
Image
Capture
Stage Three:
Delivery,
Access,
Network
Stage Four:
Preserva on
& Long Term
Stability
Stage One:
Proposal,
Evalua on,
& Selec on
You’ll mainly
concentrateon
StageTwo and
Threeduring this
internship.
We’ll just focus
on StageOne
during thefirst
two weeksbut
it isthemost
important
stage.
Someof what affects
StageThreesuch as,
network infrastructures
wedon’t havecontrol over but wewill
bedealing with imageaccessthrough
our outreach efforts.
Although
seemingly part of
thelast stage,
preservation &
stability are
determined in
StageOneand
ensured in StageTwo with
careful adherenceto technical
requirements.
CSU VRC & LIBRARY
SLIDE PROJECT

7. Second
session:
Art Images
and their
Role in
Teaching
Art History

9. WEEK THREE (February 3-7):
In Session: February 4th 1-2
Classroom Component: Discussion about project’s copyright issues,
databases evaluation, and project publicity. We’ll also go through the
our working copyright and deaccessioning and disposal documents.
Readings:
http://www.vraweb.org/resources/ipr/multimedia.html
http://www.districtdispatch.org/category/copyright/
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~csundt/copyweb/
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
Practicum: Independent cataloging, digitization, and outreach work
(Blog/Gallery)

12. Interviewees 2013
-Suzanne Hale, Collection Manager at CSU
University Art Museum
-Chris Hall, Curator at Maine Maritime Museum
-Andrianna Del Collo, Archivist at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art
-Nicole Santiago, Project Chart Recipient and
Public Programs Assistant at NYPL
-Megan Osborne, Collection Manager Avenir
Museum of Design & Merchandising at CSU

13. -Do you think that selling art that was originally created
in a sort of anti-academic or populist frame of mind
(or far removed from Western commercialism, as with
much of African/Oceanic art) for exorbitant prices
defeats the spirit of the artwork?

16. In case you ever come…

17. Feedback from students:
“I wish there was more than one day spent on the
law aspect of digital art images. I feel that most art
students aren’t well versed in media and usage
which is ironic…”
“Aspects of digital collection process that would
have been beneficial to cover more…would be the
legal requirements for cataloging collections…”

18. Feedback from Students continued…
“I did learn a ton that will help me in my future
aspirations for jobs. I never want to catalog slides
again  but I have found a deep interest in
wanting to work in a field that preserves
materials…”
“Overall, the internship was a great way to learn
broadly the issues that surround and practices
that are involved in digital collections
management process…it was of great value to
me personally as I do wish to go into this area as
a career and eventually practice professionally…”

19. Moving forward
-Have students do an initial paper or written
reflection about key terms and concepts
-Have students peer-review their cataloging
and discuss this as a group
-Finally, I want to change Art 487 into a year
long two part course.

20. Thank you
Questions or to see the syllabus, please email
anna.bernhard@colostate.edu