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Vra2010 accessCeramics.org - a digital image database

by Visual Resources Association on Mar 24, 2010

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Stephanie Beene, Watzek Library, Lewis and Clark College, presentation from VRA 28, "accessceramics.org - a digital image database,collaboratively sourced using flickr", from the closing plenary s...

Stephanie Beene, Watzek Library, Lewis and Clark College, presentation from VRA 28, "accessceramics.org - a digital image database,collaboratively sourced using flickr", from the closing plenary session "Collections of Distinction: Adding Value to the Online Community of Visual Resources"

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accessCeramics ( accessceramics.org ) is an innovative online collection of high quality contemporary ceramic art images that is global in scope. The collection was created in spring 2008 as a collaboration between Assistant Professor of Art and Program Head in Ceramics, Ted Vogel, and the Watzek Library at Lewis & Clark College. accessCeramics brings together works from established national and international artists and digital technology in a unique and intuitive way for arts education. As demonstrated by feedback that we have received from ceramics educators at other colleges and universities, the collection has become an invaluable resource for ceramics education in higher education. Today, I will go through a quick summary of the project, recent enhancements and updates, and where we are currently.
As we all know in this room, if one looking for images on the web, one may very well find plenty. However, the quality of the image and accompanying information is quite variable, and rights and use restrictions are not clear.
We wanted to create a juried image collection of high quality images accompanied by high quality metadata for enhanced search and browse. We wanted copyright-free images for the education community, since we were collecting only those images most contemporary in scope.
What we didn’t have was a physical, in-house collection, budget money to develop a large digital image database in house, or the hardware and software to sustain such a project.
However, we did have a faculty member, Ted Vogel, who has national and international contacts in the ceramics art and ceramics art education fields. We had faculty and staff with expertise in visual resources and digital collection-building. And we had opportunities for networking and collaboration.
The accessCeramics curatorial board, led by Lewis & Clark College Assistant Professor of Art and Program Head in Ceramics, Ted Vogel, recruits recognized ceramic artists for inclusion in the collection. The accessCeramics team at Watzek Library manages the accessCeramics website and provides technical support to contributing artists. Kelly Delfatti was instrumental in helping to write the grants that have built and sustained accessCeramics to this point.
When the project first started, it was before the Library of Congress had put their collections up on flickr. The accessCeramics team simply felt that flickr provided the tools needed for establishing a high-quality digital image database. Images can be resized and uploaded easily to image groups, accounts are free and easy to create, tags are auto-generated in some cases and added to images in others. Flickr also makes it easy to apply Creative Commons licenses for images or image groups, thus making the images more accessible as an educational resource. Since flickr is being used for image upload and storage, we back up the images on Lewis & Clark’s distributed servers. After the launch of accesscCeramics, we found that it was much more efficient to create flickr accounts for invited artists, given their lack of familiarity with flickr and digital image tools.
We applied Lewis & Clark’s branding by designing a public interface. The data lives in two places: flickr and accessCeramics.org
Using a locally developed web site that interfaces with flickr photo sharing software, artists upload and catalog their own images using prescribed metadata fields. Margo worked with Ted Vogel to determine a list of 10-15 terms for Object Type, Technique, Temperature, Glazing and Surface Treatment, and Material. When artists visit the cataloging interface, they choose from a list of terms in the drop-down menus. They can also supply their own terms, which become part of the terms list for other artists to choose from. The cataloging interface is also where they choose from a list of Creative Commons licenses.
We wanted various ways to browse the site. Because the site interfaces with flickr, tag clouds are created dynamically as new images are uploaded. It was important that we also provide the more traditional browsing experience through the listing of terms, with the number of items cataloged by that term, and by tabbed browsing at the top of the webpage.
So, as a recap, the process for adding content to accessCeramics is as follows: an artist is voted on by the 5-member curatorial board, with a majority vote passing the artist on to acceptance. The artist is then invited to submit images. A flickr account is created, after which the artist uploads their images to the flickr group. They go to our website, where they add metadata and licensing to images. The images then reside in a queue for approval by our Submissions Coordinator, who quality checks the images and associated metadata. Then the images are approved and passed into the collection, becoming live on our website. The metadata and images live on both flickr and our website.
Because of our innovative use of technology and our focus on arts education, we received grant support fin the amount of $19,000 for the 2008/09 academic year from the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) through their Instructional Innovation Fund. This support has allowed us to grow the collection, redesign the website, and survey arts instructors on the collection's design and composition. In April 2009, we received the very welcome news that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) had awarded accessCeramics an Access to Artistic Excellence grant in the amount of $10,000 for the 2009-2010 academic year. This funding allowed us to continue employment of our part-time Submissions Coordinator, who assists in artist recruitment and guides artists through the technical hurdles of the submissions process.
In winter of 2009, we used some of our NITLE grant money to hire web designers, so over the course of a month or so, they came up with a streamlined, aesthetic, and intuitive layout for our site.
We added search, at a pretty granular level. Not quite ready to take on Google yet, but it seems to work pretty well.
We use the freely available "cooliris” browser plugin, which turns accessCeramics into a virtual art gallery. You can size the images to full screen, useful for instruction purposes.
In late 2009, we hopped on the twitter bandwagon, which now serves as our news feed. The great part, though, is that we rarely have to actually tweet....whenever new images are added to our site, it automatically tweets the news to our website. Likewise, whenever something gets added to our blog, it automatically gets tweeted.
We created a Google Map that shows the locations of our contributing artists...this map is a bit outdated, since there are about 1,000 more images up now than when this map was created.
Using Google Translate, we added translations for the instructions on image submission for the countries from which we saw the most traffic. As a side note, Google Translate was recently commended as being “state of the art” by the New York Times. We had a Korean visiting artist who looked at the Korean translation, and reassured us that, yes, it was a good translation.
In keeping with web trends, accessCeramics is distributed instead of centralized, in content and metadata creation, storage, and licensing. It is digital instead of analog, Creative Commons instead of rights-restricted, global as well as local. We use a hybrid system of using available web 2.0 tools and applying a customized interface design and layout for optimal usability. We invite artists to join by jury selection, thus ensuring that high quality, recognized artists get added to the collection, bridging the traditional gallery model with that of the digital online world.
Currently, the collection is growing at a rate of about ten artists and 200 images per month. That growth is accelerating, especially in contributions from international artists. Traffic to the accessCeramics website runs at about 200 unique visitors per day, with peaks at about 400 per day at the beginning of semesters. With over 3,000 images representing the work of 178 artists, accessCeramics has begun to address the gap in digital image collections for contemporary ceramic art.

Vra2010 accessCeramics.org - a digital image database — Presentation Transcript

accessceramics.org a digital image database, collaboratively sourced using flickr “ Manga” Ormolu by Brendan Tang Stephanie Beene Lewis & Clark College VRA 2010 Atlanta, GA
What I will cover
- Quick summary of the project
- Recent enhancements
- Current model and numbers
“ Enlightened” by HsinYi Huang
The problem: Finding high quality images of contemporary ceramics
- Many images out there, but :
- Quality is variable
- Little or no metadata
- Copyright issues
- Not suitable for educational or
- classroom use
• Juried image collection • High quality images • High quality metadata, search, and browse • Copyright-free images “ Red Dot” by Ted Vogel Wish list:
• Physical, in-house collection • Budget money • Hardware or software “ Preferred Transitions,” by Deborah Horrell What we didn’t have:
- Faculty with national/international
- contacts
- Faculty/staff expertise in VR,
- ceramics, and digital
- collection-building
- Networking and collaboration
- opportunities
“ Blessing 2 (Side View)” by Gabriel Parque What we did have:
The Lewis & Clark accessCeramics Team Dept. of Art: Ted Vogel Asst. Professor of Art Studio Head, Ceramics Collection Curator Head of 5-member Curatorial Board (jury) Watzek Library: Mark Dahl Assoc. Director, Watzek Library Project Director Stephanie Beene Visual Resources Coordinator Jeremy McWilliams Digital Services Coordinator Dean’s Office Kelly Delfatti Sponsored Research Officer Miranda Costa Submissions Coordinator “ Constant tapping-Bad Boys+Fibber” by Pattie Chalmers
Our Solution Artists create free flickr accounts Upload images to accessCeramics flickr group flickr for image editing, upload, and storage Back up images on LC distributed servers 1 3 2
Built our public interface : Same content, different look flickr site Our site
Added customized cataloging interface : artists choose from list of terms or add their own, which are added to list Artists assign licenses here
Browse options: Lists with numbers Tag clouds Tabs
Adding content: The process
“ Cinch” by Erin Furlmsky
Outside funding for:
“ Flower Tree” by Matt Wedel
Recent Enhancements Site re-design
Recent Enhancements search
Recent Enhancements Cooliris (formerly "piclens")
Recent Enhancements Twitter auto-links news from uploads and Blog announcements
Recent Enhancements Google map of artist locations
Recent Enhancements Instructions in many languages… using Google Translate! Chinese! Russian!
The accessCeramics model? Category Traditional accessCeramics Content source Central Distributed Content origin Analog Digital Metadata creation Central Distributed Licensing Restricted Creative Commons DAM Software Industry specific Consumer Web 2.0 Audience Local Global User Interface Canned Customized
Where we stand…
- Holding at 200 unique visitors a day, spike at 400 unique visitors at peak times
- #1 when you Google “contemporary ceramics,” #40 when just “ceramics”
- 178 artists from around the world
- 3,000 images