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Alan Newman, Executive Director of the Department of Imaging at the Art Institute of Chicago, was interviewed by HATII on May 11 2001. The Imaging Department is responsible for creating an archive of more than 150 000 images, for the purposes of reproduction, reference and display. The Archive is a coalition of ten curatorial departments from within the Art Institute, and aims to effectively reflect the activities of these departments, by increasing the accessibility of their resources.
The Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of Imaging has developed its digitization strategy by fulfilling basic institutional needs, such as project demands or assessment of the educational value of the material. The technical strategy has then developed through collegial exchange, technology research and membership of organizations like CIMI and AMICO. A decade ago, the department was exclusively involved with the creation and dissemination of high-quality photographs of the museum’s permanent collection. Today the department provides an array of electronic imaging, audio-visual, multimedia and data-based services.
Digitization activities first began with ad hoc, small-scale projects with focused and perceivable goals, working to short timetables. One of the first projects, in 1992, was to digitize glass negatives for research and preservation with funding from the Samuel Kress Foundation. This provided for electronic cataloging of materials and the birth of in-house digitization, image management, image manipulation and digital video production. In 1993, the Imaging Department produced a five-minute orientation video for the Institute’s Centennial Exhibition and the image database provided content for two picture books associated with the exhibition.
For a number of years the computerization of the Institute’s permanent collection database, Chicago Information, Tracking and Inquiry (CITI) has been underway. Since 1998 the Department, working with the Registrar and Information Systems has been transforming CITI into an Enterprise image database. This will be rolled out to Institute staff in late summer 2001 and the general public in early 2002.
At present the Department is six months into a one-year project to reduce internal reliance on color transparencies and establish a totally digital chain. For now film will still be provided to outside agencies who require it but the image database for internal use will allow people to send print files to either local or enterprise printers on their own. Cost will be reduced from $6-8 for centralized b/w RC photographs which were delivered in one week to 25-50c for 24/48 hr delivery. The Imaging Department can then become a capture, quality control, storage and management facility.
The Institute did not conduct an extensive collection survey as part of planning its digitization strategy. Priorities for digitization are established by a high level adjunct committee to CITI composed of the heads of the Library, Education and Publications. Priorities have not been formalized in a strategic policy statement, but the objectives of digitization are, firstly, educational value, in particular K-12, then scholarly value, followed by good cataloging data being available (for example recently researched or published). These objectives provide the main selection criteria for digitization. Whether the material is also needed for ancillary publications or video is a by-product of these policy decisions.
A recommendation to other institutions who are attempting to formalize their selection criteria would be to have the widest possible audiences represented on the decision making body. For example, the AIC has determined that the widest audience interest would be for images of its paintings including all western and Asian art.
The main overall obstacle to planning the development of digital deliverables has been rapid technological change. Obstacles to the process of building digital deliverables have been staff training, fundraising and recruiting.
The criteria used to guide the selection of material include:
These criteria have not changed over time but the pendulum has swung from scholarly research to education as the number one priority.
The Imaging Department has co-operated with museums, academic institutions and foundations and charities at local, regional, national and international levels in developing their digitization program. Most of these collaborations have been informal and AMICO has perhaps been the most important, although Mr. Newman has lectured widely at professional conferences, such as Museums and the Web, ICHIM, Visual Resources Association and the Museum Computer Network.
The primary purposes in creating the digital deliverables reflect the Department’s selection criteria. Digital deliverables are primarily an educational and scholarly resource, with factors such as preservation, access and outside requests as concomitant factors.
The type of source material digitized includes:
The predominant mediums of the materials digitized are 4x5" color transparencies and original art (paintings have been captured on color film since 1985). The digitized deliverables represent a sample of material rather than an entire body. For the Imaging Department re-purposing the digital deliverables has been one of its original aims as a service bureau. Exhibitions and publications are what drive the Art Institute and most images are by-products of these. Despite the serendipitous nature of the digital images this approach has been extremely successful with the Department, in collaboration with Museum Education, winning three national first prizes for its educational multimedia.
The following standards, guidelines or tools are used for representing content:
The following standards, guidelines or tools are used for describing content:
The following standards, guidelines or tools are used for controlling data values:
The Department looked at other existing guidelines for digitizing particular document types when planning its digitization strategy, most significantly, Making of America and AMICO. Mr. Newman played an important role in the formation of AMICO’s imaging practices. The Department adopted QuickTime for motion pictures and QT-VR for gallery and other architectural views. They have also used QT on the web in a new way, to produce a freely available, non-licensable object viewer with panning and zooming attributes. See http://www.artic.edu/cleo for an example.
The following standards, guidelines or tools are used for representing structure:
The HTML used for representing structure is not yet Dublin Core or XML compatible, but it could be developed.
The digital deliverables created by the Imaging Department are currently only available in small samples to the public audience. CITI/Image will move many thousands of images as a client-server product in the third quarter of 2001 and publicly on the web in 2002. In July 2001 the Imaging Department will launch an experimental project for licensing images on its website which will include keyword subject query to almost 1,000 images. See http://www.artic.edu/aic/rights.
Internal advice was available on managing the Department’s digitization program. As the Department is now going totally digital some inroads are being made in cross training and walls between departments are coming down. Ultimately there is a need to develop interdepartmental co-operation and services. Unanimous agreemetn among curatorial, conservation, registrar, education, publications, graphics, imaging and library departments on the revolutionary potential of the image database, indicates the future development of this trend. Outside help was sought on color management, while hardware vendors often lent equipment for the Department to trial.
Feasibility studies are being carried out for the purposes of technical feasibility, workflow analysis and technology forecasting. These studies have been ongoing and organic and will be completed by the end of 2001. The Department has not carried out any time and motion or benchmarking studies.
Digitization has been carried out in-house so as to exercise more control over image quality. Equipment has been specifically purchased for the purposes of digitization. Many digitization processes are used, but the determining criterion is that which provides the best quality return for the monetary investment. The digitization equipment the Department uses includes a Scanview F10 for film scanning, a Nikon D1 series digital cameras and a Phase One PowerFX professional camera. Guidelines for data capture procedures have been established. Benchmarks used for image digitization are IT 8 charts and color management hardware and software to produce a closed loop between monitors, scanners, cameras and printers. This hardware includes X-Rite colorimeter, Greitag Spectralino and ColorPar’s Optical as well as Apple’s Colorsync. The department is also experimenting with MTF targets.
The department employs twenty people, ten of who are working full time on aspects related to digitization. Four people are employed on image capture and three on post capture processing. Others also work on outputting, technical development, maintenance and metadata. Staff members have a background in photography. As the Department will have subject (content) based access to its image database, a graduate library student will also be employed to check metadata and descriptions within the database. With the exception of color management, expertise on the technical aspects of digitization was available in-house.
Training needs are assessed informally, however the department strongly believes in developing redundant skill sets and cross training. Areas of training that have been identified include:
The team members that have received training include:
Training has been organized using the following:
The training has met the needs of the project.
The project is aware of the copyright position of the digital deliverables and owns most of the copyright in the original materials. Other copyright holders are the ARS, Vaga, artists and estates and their representatives. The copyright status of the final digital deliverables will be declared. Copyright is currently placed on all material coming out of the Institute and there are future plans to use an embedded visible electronic watermark. The Department will ensure that this is effective, as it does not want to become a policeman. Educational (fair use) users are allowed to make low resolution watermarked printouts of the digital deliverables on paper.
For text material users can download:
For digital image material users can download:
For digital image material, users can only view highest quality images. Wavelet compression, JPEG 2000 and pan/zoom server technology are being evaluated.
For digital moving images users can download and view samples.
The Art Institute of Chicago has a conservation procedure for original works of art. The Institute’s conservation department routinely discusses with the Imaging Department, strategies for protecting material to be digitized. Equipment and processes for vulnerable materials include special cradles, lighting, exposure limits and anti-vibration measures. Materials are prepared either by conservation or Imaging staff during digitization. Particularly when there is new equipment conservation staff will set lighting, UV, and temperature levels, as it did when the Phase One camera was installed. Access may be restricted to original material after digitization.
The Art Institute of Chicago’s in-house collection management system, CITI, is used to catalog the original materials. The CITI system is a client/server database using the cross platform database, 4D. CITI currently contains 130,000 records.
So far no material has been rejected for digitization. For the Institute’s own works the Department digitizes from originals for works on copystand or from intermediaries for paintings and 3D objects. The department expects to employ all direct digital capture by the end of 2001; when capture of external material is required the Department has to use whatever it is sent.
In early 2002 the Department will supervise a satellite digital studio in the Japanese print storage area for the purposes of systematic digitization of the Art Institute’s distinguished collection of Japanese woodblock prints. It is expected that a high-end electronic flash based digital camera will be selected due to conservation issues.
Intermediaries used for image digitization include slides, 35mm or 4x5” transparencies.
The intermediary used for moving image digitization is Betacam SP.
Modified MARC is used for cataloging the digital deliverables.
Tools used for controlling data values are:
Metadata details are recorded about:
The Imaging Department has adopted a conservative metadata standard (AMICO minimum). Metadata records such as iconography visible in the view or detail could be augmented by the curator. Most metadata information is automatically generated by applications. Manually added metadata mainly relates to the image view. The metadata records are held in the Imaging Department’s database written in Helix RADE, and will be available to the new CITI/Image system. The relationship of the records in the two catalogs is the same. Placeholders referencing hard camera copy hold gaps in the Enterprise image database. The metadata will be used to control whether the image is publishable or is simply a quickly made document (snapshot). The record and object are linked through the image number.
The TIFF file format is used for the capture, preservation, printing and delivery of image material. JPEG is used as an additional delivery format for web and screen display. The capture, preservation and delivery resolution depends on the size of the original.
For 4x5 or smaller originals the archive image is 30-50MB, for 4x5 to 8x10 originals the archive image is 60MB, for 8x10 to 11x14 originals the archive image is 70MB and for 11x14 and above originals the archive image is 80MB and above in size. Capture bit depth is 16 bits per channel (48 bit) and preservation and delivery 24 bit. It is the 24 bit TIFF file that is saved and the Department does not capture as high as some other institution’s projects because the lower levels fulfil 99% of use. JPEG image compression is used for delivery to improve access and enhance usability. The project retains the original scans in uncompressed form. The project carries out post processing on images using PhotoShop 6 which offers a lot of tools for the high bit images. ColorQuartet is also used (scanner software). Processes carried out include gamma correction and sometimes color correction when comparing screen to transparency or object. The dynamic range of the equipment is checked. For others starting work in digital imaging, the Imaging Department would recommend starting small and prototyping.
Digital moving images are created ad hoc on a project by project basis. In all cases QuickTime is used for capture, preservation and delivery with resolution set for the best compromise between speed and quality in each case. The Media100 system is used for video editing and is augmented by Adobe After Effects and Terran Movie Cleaner.
The quality control procedures in place for the digital deliverables are carefully calibrated input devices and color evaluation post capture by senior Imaging staff. Metadata quality control procedures are being finalized for content related entries. Field and name controls and some automatic checks will also be used.
Access to the digital deliverables and catalog is restricted to in-house users. Searching and browsing facilities are keyword and Boolean with an emphasis on authority fields. It is too soon to anticipate the level of use with the new system but the Department expects exponential growth.
The Department of Imaging’s digitization program has cost $400,000 over 10 years in actual grant support and perhaps an equal amount in staff in-kind. The main sources of funding have been grants and private foundations. If the Department had been able to determine its own funding it would not have done anything substantially different. The Department’s view is that the use of standards has saved money in the short and long term.
New material and its associated metadata will be added at the rate of 10,000 items a year and metadata is changed frequently as the nature of collections change. The Department of Imaging’s archive strategy is based on a rotation of off-site location, redundant media and optical media (proposed DVD-R when ROI is realized). Quality control measures are in place for life-cycle management.
The Department intends to keep the digital deliverables available indefinitely. The program is dependent on self-generating funds and the creative efficiencies provided by the technology. The Department has not needed an exit strategy for its digitization program because it is in use in practice for general operations within the institution and is integrated into it.
The Art Institute of Chicago’s Imaging Department is notable as one of the few, if only, projects surveyed that has developed a totally digital chain from capture to delivery. In particular the integration of this service with the institution wide CITI/Image system is worth highlighting. This has reduced the cost and time of delivering image material and enabled the Imaging Department to re-orientate its activities away from serving internal users directly and towards image creation, management, tracking and storage. The implications this process has for the whole institution seem no less significant. That the Imaging Department is largely an internal “on-demand” service has meant that it has not been encumbered with some of the strategic selection, prioritization and collection development issues that face other digitization projects. Furthermore, it remains to be seen what impact the public rollout of this system has on workload and orientation. It is possible to envisage that the demand created by the system may pose some strategic digital collection development issues.