Transcript Promoting Visual Literacy Across Campus: a Case Study Visual Resources Collections Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan. VRA Conference 32, Session.

Promoting Visual Literacy Across
Campus: a Case Study
Visual Resources Collections
Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan.
VRA Conference 32, Session #4
The Teaching Turn: From Static Collections to Dynamic Learning Centers
March 13, 2014
Molly Schoen
[email protected]
An Overview of the VRC
• History of Art Visual Resources Collections (HART
VRC), at the University of Michigan
• Contains:
– 80,000 + digital images
• Copy photography
• Digitized slide distribution sets
• Vendor images
– 150,000 35mm slides used for teaching (weeded from a
collection of 300,000)
– 50,000 lantern slides
– 200,000 + archival research images (negatives, prints, slides
of original photography)
An Overview of the VRC
• Examples of collections:
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Palace Museum Archive
South Asian Art Archive
Islamic Art Archive
Romanesque Archive
Sinai Archive
Distribution sets, slides
created and sold by UM ,
1970-2006
• ACSAA: American Council
on Southern Asian Art
• AAPD: Asian Art
Photographic Distribution
• UMSD:University of
Michigan Slide Distribution
(western art)
Ilene Forsyth Romanesque Collection
The Ghost of VRC Past
• Inconsistent Record Keeping
– AAPD numbering: each slide supposed to have a
unique, four-digit number.
– different slides were sometimes replaced in AAPD
sets over time. The staff at the time would just reuse the same numbers, so numerous works share
the same accession numbers.
The Ghost of VRC Past
• Mysteries everywhere
– Undocumented collections
– Incomplete inventory spreadsheets left by temporary workers
with no information on how to finish them.
– Inconsistent or nonexistent procedures
– Unfinished projects left on tables
The Ghost of VRC Past
• Services offered to HART faculty only
• Stuffy rules, unfriendly signage
VRC in Transition
• Stopped circulating slides for
teaching in 2009
• Weeded copy photography slides,
slides from certain vendors, and
some duplicates.
• Digitization services extended to
extra-departmental faculty and UMDearborn faculty
• Began services to HART graduate
students in 2012
– Unofficially, we can sometimes
digitize materials for undergraduate
students as well.
Challenges
• Steady decline in faculty image orders:
– 2011: 221
– 2012: 205
– 2013: 144
• Faculty are able to find their own images online now more
than ever
• How do we stay relevant?
– Increase access to collections
– Promote best practices / visual literacy
– Collaborate with faculty on writing grants for long-term
digitization projects
– Collaborate with other departments across campus
– New outreach initiatives
Increase Access to Collections
• Moving away from cataloging individual images at
item level
• Instead, focus on creating finding aids in EAD
format
– Displays online and is searchable
– Can be integrated with other UM Library finding aids
• Finding aids created in the past were done just
using Word and were not posted online.
– Recruited Library & Information Science students from
Wayne State University to convert them to EAD
Promote Best Practices and Visual Literacy
• Classroom presentations
on finding images
revamped to explain why
visual literacy is
important:
– Know when to trust the
publisher of an image
– Accuracy
– Copyright concerns
• Presentations given to
History of Art classes as
well as Classics and other
departments
Screenshot showing color variations
in Google Images
Collaborating with Faculty
• As we uncover
collections, we contact
faculty who may be
interested
– We came across a box of
century-old Japanese and
Chinese scrolls, had a
student inventory and
describe them, then
notified faculty involved
with Asian art.
– After finding slides of
costume and dance
photographs, we set up a
meeting to show them to a
professor within the
Department of Dance
Jin Nong. Ink Play, Leaf 2. 1754.
Collaborating with Faculty
• Working on writing
several grants with
faculty
– Promotes the professor’s
work and puts the VRC in
the spotlight
– Provides funding for
long-term digitization
projects, which:
• Increases public access
through online availability
• Ensures longevity of VRC
Collaborating with other departments
• We frequently meet with UM Library staff on a
variety of projects:
– Finding aids – using templates created by UM
Libraries, with possibility of using their library catalog
platform to host our finding aids.
– Giving joint presentations to students on research and
copyright
• Collections Committee: a campus-wide group of
people working in museum, library, and digital
collections.
– Discuss issues and share new developments.
New Outreach Initiatives
• Publicity
– Collaborate with HART
marketing specialist for
updates on the department’s
website, facebook page, and
email newsletters
– Regularly update our own
website
– Announcements on library
informations screens
• Faculty Outreach
– Fall faculty meeting: do an
“elevator pitch” to inform
faculty of VRC services
– Also contact via email at the
beginning of each term
The VRC homepage, with new
“Search Our Images” button
displayed prominently
New Outreach Initiatives
• Event Hosting
– Emeriti Appreciation Event
– Copyright Q&A
– Fall Open House
– Technology sessions