Website Content Analysis and Feasability Study for the ARWLHC
Philadelphia on Stone: physical and online exhibitions
1. Opening slide
Intro
Erika Piola, Project Director of POS, three-year collaborative grant project
researching the first 50 yrs of commercial litho in Philadelphia 1828-1878 that
from its impetus included components geared toward a web presence
4 components of the project:
Slide - POS ImPAC main page/ImPAC searchpage
A. Digital catalog of over 1000 lithographs and related prints from the surveys of 8
collaborating institutions including LCP, HSP, and LOC included in our digital
catalog ImPAC
Slide -Bio dict page
B. On-line Biographical Dictionary of over 500 entries for lithographers, printers,
and publishers active in the trade 1828-1878 also included in our digital catalog
ImPAC
Slide -Talking pts slide
C. Illustrated text of thematic essays by curators and scholars in the field related to
the project research to be published in Fall 2012
D. Last by not least, the exhibition that explores the history and process of
lithography, the personaland professionallives of Philadelphia lithographers,
and the influence of Philadelphia commerciallithography on 19th-century and
contemporary visual culture.
POS is also one of the first projects under the auspices ofour Visual Culture
Programfor which I serve as a co-director. One of the goals of the program is to
promote the use of the library’s rich collection of textual and graphic materials
related to visual culture as primary sources for research. The POS website as does
the exhibition serve as means to this end.
Before I discuss the evolution of the physical exhibition to the on-line environment
- I should start with this caveat – I had grant funding and was able to use exhibition
designer Steve Tucker for the wall and case layouts of the physical exhibition,
typically done by the LCP curators. This funding allowed for the creation of the
prop of a printing shop wall, large section panels, and reproductions that would
most likely would not have been a possibility otherwise. I also will discuss the
transformation of a physical exhibition into an on-line version from a curator’s
POV as opposed to the technical aspects which Rob will focus on more
Slide -Exhib slide 1
2. Physical exhibition was a result of the research for the project and I created a
checklist about 2 years into the project and about 9 months before the installation.
The checklist was provided to Steve Tucker who laid out the items within the
individual sections based on my initial organization.
Slide -Exhib slide 2
I tried to include items from each of the collaborating institutions through loans
and reproductions. Most institutions provided their materials without fees, except
for a few, which did cause one institution to not be included in the exhibition.
Slide -Web on-line exhib main page /mosaic
Physical exhibition was the basefor the on-line version, including the label text,
the sections overviews, and all the pieces on display – web version also allowed
me the opportunity to include some material that needed to be cut from the gallery
due to space. The on-line exhibition can be accessed through the library’s home
page as well as through the main page of the POS website
Organization of the web exhibition required receipt of digital files of the
collaborating institution’s items on display, which fortunately all were on hand due
to the digital catalog componentof the project or because they were being used as
a reproduction in the gallery. Reproductions were requested about three months
before the installation; use of files as repro in the exhibition was a different rights
and repro request than for use on the on-line version. Usually there was a different
contract and sometime fees.
Slide –Main page/Sectiontext
In the creation of the web exhibition, I also needed to be mindful to edit certain
section and label texts that made no sense in the web environment, suchas terms
“on display” and materials on loan from non-project institutions were digitized
before they were installed.
Slide -Mutliple image one label slide
Also multiple items described in one label in the gallery exhibition required in the
web version - a representative image of the group that opened to all the images or
each digital file of each piece from the group included the same label text repeated
as you can see in this slide
Slide -Digital files screencapture
3. I am also fortunate to work at a library with a digital collections manager Nicole
Joniec who processed and organized the digital files by section with ids based on
Section number and placement in cases and on walls as well as a website designer
Nicole Scalessa who designed the on-line exhibition in AdobeDreamweaver CS4
to apply the css/html based design which implemented jquery overlay code. The
CSS layout is based on the 960 CSS framework. All images were prepared in
AdobePhotoShop CS4before site inclusion. Nicole Scalessa developed the
thematic of the main page and section pages based on pictorial details from
lithographs surveyed for the project and on the exhibition designer’s fonts used in
the physical exhibition.
Slide -Pop up image
The development of the web version of POS had a few hiccups as is par for the
courseof an exhibition. One was that we had chosen a different layout of the
mosaic initially, but it was altered to be more user friendly to read the label text in
pretty much one screen. Initially we had a side orientation of the thumbnails where
the pop up briefly opened next to the thumbnail as opposed to a frozen overlapping
pop up window
Slide -Wikipedia
The on-line exhibition also allows a link to the Wikipedia entry about lithography
creating another venue to expand its audience
Slide -POS website
The creation of the web exhibition does add an extra step/steps in the curation of
an exhibition - extra work to organize the digital files, to amend label copy
attached to images, and to review the site before going live but the advantages are
great – a wider audience has access to your work and I use it as quick access to my
narrative and as a reference sourcefor myself and library patrons that I can
hyperlink to in an email. Also, unlike a physical exhibition, a web version will be
in perpetuity and Google searchable.
Nothing quite compares to viewing an exhibition in person on site. The narrative
and actual flow feels more fluid than the web environment, and your sense of scale
is off, but if the ultimate goal of an exhibition is to educate the public, nothing
equals the mass communication possibilities available on-line.