The Academic Image Co-operative

With funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the support of the College Art Association, the AIC was initiated in January 1999 as a planning process to develop a scaleable database of curriculum-based digital images for survey courses in the history of art. The planning process was completed formally in August 2000 and resulted in a prototype database and image collection. It also developed technical, organizational, and policy frameworks that have the potential for sustaining a more ambitious online service; one capable of identifying, developing, and disseminating a far large number of curriculum-based and scholarly image collections.

Since the completion of this planning process, ongoing discussions between the DLF and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, have focused on how the AIC's image collection - and the learning derived in its development - might contribute to a broader initiative under consideration by the Foundation and provisionally named ArtSTOR. Briefly, ArtSTOR is looking to do with visual resource materials something analagous to what JSTOR did for periodical literature in the humanities and social sciences: create an essential digital library that responds to widespread scholarly needs.

The result is a collaboration whereby the DLF is helping the foundation to develop circumscribed, strategically identified image collections that respond to widespread teaching and other specialist scholarly needs. It is envisaged that these collections, including the one developed by the AIC, will be incorporated into the evolving ArtSTOR service, which eventually will be managed as a project of the Foundation or an organization that they designate.

For a programmatic and preliminary description of the ArtSTOR initiative, please consult the 1999 President's Report available from the Mellon Foundation website at http://www.mellon.org/President annual report 99.pdf. These pages document the AIC's development as a DLF initiative.

Final Report on the AIC as submitted to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in August 2000

Traces the progress of the AIC from its initial conception through the development of collection, technical and image documentation standards, service specifications, and business plan.

The AIC Draft Collection Strategy and Development Framework.

Resulting from a review of the AIC's progress during the period from 1/99 - 2/00, the document outlines a collection strategy and development framework that may sustain the initiative in the longer terms. It states the AIC's aims and objectives, and proposes detailed strategies for developing, managing, and providing access to its collections.

AIC brochure.

This brief document outlines the AIC's vision and was developed to be circulated at conferences and other professional gatherings where the prototype has been demonstrated.

Details about the AIC's development.

These pages trace the AIC's development as a DLF project.

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