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Abstract
Surrogate images are indispensable tools for the study of art history.
The provision of these surrogates has traditionally been in the form
of the photographic reproduction. The potential exists for the
creation of databases of electronic surrogate images. This paper
examines some recent developments in this direction in European
and American libraries, museums and educational institutions,
ranging from prototypes to small, successfully implemented
systems. The widespread development of large-scale digital image
databases is however impeded by a number of factors such as
insufficient understanding of user needs, a lack of standards for
intellectual access, image quality and information interchange,
rapidly changing technology, copyright restrictions, high costs, and
uncertain funding. Relevant initiatives to resolve these problems are
noted.
1. Introduction
As VALA (Victorian Association for Library Automation) Travel
Scholar 1992, I visited fourteen libraries, museums and universities
in England, France and the United States to investigate recent
developments in imaging technologies and their use in the provision
of visual information specifically for art history. I was able to study a
range of systems and meet with those responsible for their
development and operation. In addition, I attended the Electronic
Imaging and the Visual Arts Conference and Exhibition held in
London. My investigations were concerned primarily with image
capture and processing, methods of combining text and image,
analogue versus digital storage, hardware and software options,
telecommunications, and management issues. Further research was
carried out at the Clearinghouse on Art Documentation and
Computerization, Thomas J. Watson Library, Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York.
Clearly, the potential exists for the creation and use of image
databases in art history but, at this stage, the problems are many
and difficult, but not insurmountable. Defining clearly user needs,
developing standards for describing visual materials and clarifying
copyright and intellectual property obligations are just some of the
issues that must be addressed. General trends in technology and
telecommunications are promising, as are developments in other
areas such as medical and scientific visual information systems,
digital photography and pre-press.
3. Recent Developments
Since the mid-1980s, there has been a noticeable surge of activity in
the area of electronic imaging for art history. Many of these projects
have failed to be developed beyond the prototype stage, but it is
obvious that the technology is slowly being shaped to meet the very
specific needs of this field. New work continues to be undertaken
Electronic Publishing
The Census was the only analogue image system I saw that had
been completed in the last year or so. Generally speaking, it would
appear that this technology has little to offer art history in the
1990s. Even the area where it made some headway in the 1980s,
electronic publishing, seems to have been taken over by digital
media such a CD-I and CD-TV. A number of CD-I art titles such as
The Renaissance of Florence and Harvest of the Sun (Vincent van
Gogh) have been released by Philips. A CD version of the Micro
Gallery (London) is due to be published later this year.
Teaching Resources
The 35mm slide is the commonest form of photographic
reproduction used to support the teaching of art and architecture
Public Libraries
Many of the libraries (including the Library of Congress), which in
the mid- to late-1980s pioneered the use of the analogue videodisc
to solve problems of preservation, management and access to their
pictorial collections, have since begun projects with digitised
images.
The Bibliothèque Publique d'Information (BPI), Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris, created several analogue videodiscs in the late
1980s, one of which was devoted to art history. The library's aim
was to improve access to their encyclopaedic collection of images.
Despite the fact that the images are not high quality and the user
interface very primitive, from my observations, the system remains
immensely popular.
The new digital system, still at the developmental stage, will offer a
much more sophisticated approach. The BPI photographs art
exhibitions held in Paris, including those held in the Centre
Pompidou itself. Using this material, the BPI aims to recreate these
temporary exhibitions digitally. Each art work exhibited, views of the
gallery interior with the exhibition on display as well as
accompanying textual materials perhaps from the exhibition
catalogue will be available on the screen. Six thumbnail images can
There are similarities between the BPI's activities and those of the
State Library of New South Wales' Multimedia Library Link Project.
Image transfer trials are planned between the two libraries.
Storage requirements
Images captured at high resolutions create huge files of data to be
stored. The trend is to scan at highest possible resolution and, from
these archive images, derive working images that correspond to the
limits of current display hardware and network speeds. It is possible
to reduce the amount of storage required for images by using a
compression mechanism. The most widely used in art imaging is
that defined by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (Kodak, Sony,
Apple, Adobe, IBM et al). The JPEG compression algorithm typically
achieves compression ratios of between 10:1 and 20:1. By the end
of the decade, new algorithms will no doubt offer dramatic
improvements. It has been suggested that the current trends in
terms of increased storage capacity and processing power will
continue for at least another twenty years, and if costs continue to
fall, then digital storage of vast amounts of images will become
increasingly viable for many institutions.
Lack of connectivity
Image databases have generally been developed as stand-alone,
single site installations but the ability to send or receive images
from remote sites is becoming an important issue for those wishing
to offer their users a wider access to images. As networks become
faster and services like ISDN become widespread, full colour image
transmission will become increasingly feasible.
There are a number of American and European universities and
colleges either planning to use or actually using their campus local
area networks to provide better access to their image collections for
study and teaching purposes, for example, Duke University, North
Carolina; University of Maryland at College Park; Oppland College,
Norway. Success in providing online images to a lecture theatre has
yet to be demonstrated. Some of these services are also available to
Internet users. SPIRO at the University of California at Berkeley, for
example, is accessible by any remote terminal using the X- windows
protocol.
In the future, art history images will be available to the public from
sources other than libraries and museums. Several companies are
building collections of digital images of art works and acquiring their
electronic distribution rights. Some commercial image banks such as
The Image Bank are planning to offer a remote access service. The
Kodak Picture-Exchange, set to debut in the U.S. in 1993 and Europe
in 1994, will allow subscribers the opportunity to have a thumbnail
image catalogued and held in a central digital archive for inspection.
Users will be able to search online and place an order for an image,
either in photographic or electronic format.
The Kodak Photo-CD, which has been available since 1992, offers a
new, relatively inexpensive way to create and access image
databases. Kodak plans five different versions: Master, Pro, Portfolio,
Catalogue and Medical. The Photo CD-Master is the only format
Copyright
The issue of copyright is seen as a major hurdle in the development
of digital image databases. Clarification of the legal and moral
obligations of the creators and users of these systems is vital. The
fact that digital images can be accessed from such an increasingly
large number of locations, downloaded, manipulated and used to
make high quality hard copy images means that the opportunities
for misappropriation of intellectual property are boundless. There is,
understandably, increasing resistance on the part of artists and
museums to give permission for their works to be used in digital
form. Efforts are under way to determine appropriate levels of
access to digital images, to effectively control their use and to
ensure adequate financial compensation for copyright holders.
Especially important are issues of control over copying images from
electronic format to paper, downloading images from one electronic
Email: jdurran@netspace.net.au