collage

1. New Library World
COLLAGE: the Corporation of London Library and Art Gallery Electronic
Oliver Vicars-Harris
Article information:
To cite this document:
Oliver Vicars-Harris, (1999),"COLLAGE: the Corporation of London Library and Art Gallery Electronic", New Library World,
Vol. 100 Iss 2 pp. 60 - 64
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/03074809910263783
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2. Background
In the beginning the Libraries and Art Gal-
leries Department had a problem. At the start
of the 1990s we managed the successful move
from card on to computer catalogue. This
improved public use of our written collec-
tions, but rendered even more conspicuous
the fact that our visual collections were so
relatively inaccessible. The department is
responsible for the long-term care of import-
ant and extensive collections of visual
materials, but at the same time has a duty to
provide open public access to them (see
Plate 1).
The Print Room of Guildhall Library
houses tens of thousands of engravings, draw-
ings, maps, photographs, and ephemera – the
world’s primary source for historic pictorial
materials relating to London (see Plate 2). In
60
New Library World
Volume 100 · Number 1147 · 1999 · pp. 60–64
MCB University Press · ISSN 0307-4803
Feature article
COLLAGE: the
Corporation of London
Library and Art Gallery
Electronic
Oliver Vicars-Harris
The author
Oliver Vicars-Harris, Project Manager, is a freelance
consultant. He can be contacted at: 61 Lordship Road,
London, N16 0QJ. Tel: 07971 856060.
e-mail: oliver.vicars-harris@tate.org.uk
Keywords
Art, Internet, Libraries, Online retrieval, United Kingdom
Abstract
The Corporation of London (the local authority for the city)
has unveiled a remarkable new tool which is set to
transform accessibility by the public to the extensive visual
collections held in its libraries and galleries. Over a period
of only 18 months a dedicated team of staff have pho-
tographed, digitised and indexed more than 30,000 works
of art as the result of an intensive production effort known
as COLDIP (or the Data Imaging Project). The works are
drawn, so far, from the Guildhall Library and Guildhall Art
Gallery; these collections are renowned for their strength
in material relating to London, but are also rich in a host of
surprises. The material is now widely and easily accessible
via COLLAGE – a powerful custom-designed visual
information system delivered on dedicated workstations in
the city, as well as via the Internet.
© Corporation of London
Plate 1
Plate 2 1821 etching of crowds gazing at a print shop
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3. addition to this, the corporation’s permanent
collection of works of art has grown over
several centuries and forms one of the largest
art collections in local authority hands –
particularly strong in Victorian material with
a number of important pre-Raphaelite works
(see Plate 3).
Although display of key works will at last be
made possible through the opening of the new
Guildhall Art Gallery (see Plate 4) in the
second half of 1999, the vast majority of both
collections will remain stored safely away,
available only via request through staff …
assuming you know what to ask for! How to
continue to preserve while at the same time
promoting exposure?
This age-old difficulty has resulted in
under use of the visual collections, since
inadequate display space, pressure on staff
and damage caused by handling have all been
inevitable factors to restricting access. A
solution was needed which would display a
vast number of works, with reduced staff
intervention and handling of originals. The
department perceived a new opportunity to
provide just such a solution via the emerging
digital imaging technologies.
Development
The solution proved to be rather more
involved than that of “buying one of those
imaging things”. With standards in this area
nowhere near in place in the early 1990s, the
department felt itself at risk of being
uncomfortably close to the leading edge of
development.
In order to ensure that we were not buying
into technology for technology’s sake, in 1994
we carried out a detailed feasibility study
(including public survey and formal evalua-
tion of other project sites). This culminated in
agreement of an outline specification of
requirements, against which identified market
leaders were invited to submit development
proposals, enabling us to cost the project. One
of the more promising proposals came from
iBase Image Systems. In 1995 we were in a
position to draw up an overall technical
system requirements specification and seek
various committee approvals to put the
project out to EC tender.
All of 1996 was taken up with what turned
into two exhaustive tender processes with all
the associated activities of advertising in the
European Journal, financial vetting of appli-
cants, evaluation of tenders, etc. Second time
around, a contract was awarded to Integrated
Technology (Europe), who sub-contracted
iBase to develop the project’s underlying
“production system”. It had proved necessary
to separate the project into two distinct devel-
opment phases, first the “production system”
and then the “delivery system”. This way we
would have tools to ensure that a meaningful
body of data could be built up prior to
taking advantage of further developments in
technology to deliver this information to the
end-user.
61
COLLAGE: the Corporation of London Library and Art Gallery Electronic
Oliver Vicars-Harris
New Library World
Volume 100 · Number 1147 · 1999 · 60–64
Plate 3 Lord Leighton: The Music Lesson, 1887
Plate 4 1872 view of Guildhall Library
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4. Production
Commencing in January 1997, the produc-
tion process was undertaken over a period of
18 months by a dedicated team of eight tem-
porary corporation staff. It involved three
distinct stages which operated in parallel:
• Indexing: four people creating text records
to ensure that all works added to the data-
base are retrievable, together with giving
instructions for image display (see Plates 5
and 6).
• Photography: two people capturing images
on conventional photographic transparen-
cy, for subsequent conversion into digital
form via Photo-CD (see Plate 7).
• Imaging: one person downloading appro-
priate resolution images from photo-CD
and linking to database records, together
with editing and compressing them (see
Plate 8).
Housed in a specially adapted studio, these
activities were supported by a bespoke com-
puterised “production management system”.
Four separate modules controlled and
co-ordinated entry of production data – both
text and images – and provided related man-
agement information.
Delivery
By 1998, having drawn up a full operational
requirement, we invited second tenders for
development of our end-user system. This is
where COLLAGE comes in – the Corpora-
tion of London Library and Art Gallery
Electronic (see Plate 9).
Developed by iBase, with graphic design by
Diverse Interactive, this custom-built system
allows easy access to the high quality visual
database built up by the COLDIP team.
COLLAGE came on-line to the general
public in July 1998 via dedicated workstations
in the Guildhall Library (see Plate 10).
62
COLLAGE: the Corporation of London Library and Art Gallery Electronic
Oliver Vicars-Harris
New Library World
Volume 100 · Number 1147 · 1999 · 60–64
Plate 5 Unique identifiers via barcoding
Plate 6 Indexing the works
Plate 7 Photographing the works
Plate 8 Processing the digital images
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5. COLLAGE is aimed at achieving an unusual
balance in terms of providing a very intuitive
and attractive means of access, but with pow-
erful tools to interrogate a substantial body of
information. It has been tailored to provide
separate dedicated interfaces for user-friendly
access by different types of end-user. The
“research interface” enables powerful key-
board enquiries about the collections and the
“staff interface” allows editing of the database
in relation to ongoing collections manage-
ment. COLLAGE provides a wide range of
search facilities and other tools (see Plate 11).
Once retrieved, all images have associated
information and can be displayed in true
colour at full-screen resolution or above. Use
of high resolution images up to 16 × screen
size, as well as some video sequences, allows
detail sufficient for display of some of the very
intricate works of art (see Plate 12).
The future
As a fully networked system, COLLAGE has
been designed to be scaleable to respond to
demand. There are plans to extend access via
workstations at various city sites beyond
Guildhall Library (such as within the Barbi-
can Library and new Guildhall Art Gallery).
The more general public visitors will be
catered for via a simple “touch-screen
interface”, encouraging them to explore the
collections (see Plate 13).
There are also a number of extended
requirements under development, such as
linking COLLAGE to our library catalogue
and providing a geographic search tool.
Perhaps the most important next step is
that of providing access beyond the city to
remote visitors via the Internet. iBase have
adapted COLLAGE for Web delivery using
Java in order to preserve most of the features
63
COLLAGE: the Corporation of London Library and Art Gallery Electronic
Oliver Vicars-Harris
New Library World
Volume 100 · Number 1147 · 1999 · 60–64
Plate 10 Main search selection screen
Plate 9 COLLAGE entry screen Plate 11 Subject search screen
Plate 12 Theme selection screen
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6. as well as its look and feel, as well as providing
the option of a more basic HTML version for
users with lower specification Web access.
Following completion of current trials, the
Web site will be launched to the public in
1999, delivering over 20,000 out of copyright
images at a resolution sufficient for full-screen
display. Our plans include provision of full on-
line ordering and e-commerce facilities to
deliver a range of print and reproduction
options to a new global market-place.
COLLAGE has already started to repay our
investment through both its commercial and
service benefits.
Facts and figures
Both the underlying production management
system and the COLLAGE delivery system
are built on an SQL server database
networked to PCs running Windows NT4.
The user applications interrogate the database
via ODBC but are based on proprietary iBase
software written in C++ and presented
through a specially designed GUI builder.
To deliver more than 30,000 indexed
images in less than 18 months, the production
team had to meet a demanding workflow
target of between 100 and 150 works per day.
The most time-consuming activity was the
indexing, where the daily workload was
shared between four staff. Actual workflow
varied dramatically depending on the nature
of the works; the capture of large paintings or
sculpture could slow the pace to less than 50,
whereas a consistent series of works on paper
might increase throughput to over 200 items
per day.
At the end of the production process the
corporation was left with three distinct assets:
(1) an on-line database of indexed
compressed images;
(2) a digital archive of master images up to
18mb or 72mb on photo-CD;
(3) an analogue photographic archive of
35mm or 6cm × 7cm transparencies.
The overall development cost of the project
was £880,000 – divided roughly as follows:
• 40 per cent staff costs;
• 30 per cent system development costs; and
• 30 per cent equipment and other costs.
The total cost of a project of this size in terms
of internal staff time spent on development,
management and implementation is estimat-
ed at around 15 person years.
Some essential steps to ensuring successful
delivery of a project of this type are:
• forming clear definition and agreement of
objectives;
• establishing a strong identity and generat-
ing enthusiasm for the project;
• gaining overall sponsorship at a senior
level;
• establishing workflow autonomy via an
independent project team;
• maintaining ongoing commitment from
expert collection staff;
• balancing ambitions and expectations
against achievability;
• ongoing contingency planning and
progress monitoring towards deadlines.
Details
Workstations delivering the full COLLAGE
facilities and content as well as a range of
reprographics services are available for public
use from 9.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to
Friday in: The Print Room, Guildhall
Library, Aldermanbury, London EC2P 2EJ.
Tel: 0171 332 1839.
COLLAGE will also be available on the
Web from early 1999 via the corporation’s
home page at: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk
For further information about develop-
ment please contact: Cathy Pringle, Planning
and Resources Librarian. Tel: 0171 332 1879;
Fax: 0171 600 3384; e-mail:
cathy.pringle@ms.corpoflondon.gov.uk
64
COLLAGE: the Corporation of London Library and Art Gallery Electronic
Oliver Vicars-Harris
New Library World
Volume 100 · Number 1147 · 1999 · 60–64
Plate 13 Theme selection screen
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7. This article has been cited by:
1. Amy Lucker. 2003. Evolution of a Profession. Journal of Library Administration 39, 161-174. [CrossRef]
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