This was the final of three meetings on the topic of a shared cataloging utility or service for the VR community. Sponsored by the DLF, these meetings have envisioned the strategic development of a service that will facilitate and promote the shared development of high-quality, consistent, reliable, and professionally developed descriptions of visual resources. DLF has been prepared to invest in a prototype development in 2001 should these meetings indicate that such a development is desirable, feasible, and cost-effective.
Attending: Max Marmor (DLF/Yale and presiding); Murtha Baca (Getty); Linda Barnhart (UCSD); Brett Carnell (LC); Sherman Clarke (NYU); Michael Ester (Luna); Elisa Lanzi (Smith); Vicki O'Riordan ((UCSD); Bill Parod (Northwestern/Dun Huang project); Barbara Rockenbach (Yale and recorder); James Shulman (by phone; Mellon); Chris Sundt (U Oregon); Ann Whiteside (Harvard GSD); Greg Zick (U Washington)
Max reviewed previous discussions of the need for and feasibility of developing a prototype shared cataloging utility for VR collections. He summarized the results of two previous DLF-sponsored meetings on this subject (22 Jan 2001 at NYU, 1 March 2001 at the VRA annual conference). He defined the purpose of this final focus group meeting as 1) to test, revise as appropriate, or affirm the understandings arrived at in the previous meetings and 2) to update those understandings in view of a major development, the likely adoption of this initiative by the Mellon Foundation as part of its nascent ArtSTOR imaging initiative.
Max briefly reviewed the genesis of ArtSTOR, its relationship to a planned art history phase of JSTOR, and its likely development trajectory. His summary was amplified and expanded upon by James Shulman, who has been appointed executive director of ArtSTOR and who participated in the meeting via speakerphone. Discussion revolved around the project's likely advisory structure and the possible role(s) of a shared cataloging tool within ArtSTOR. [Press releases concerning ArtSTOR appeared shortly after this meeting, alleviating the need to summarize in detail this part of the discussion here.]
Max then summarized the shared cataloging utility discussion to date, emphasizing these accomplishments:
These accomplishments, especially the identification of ArtSTOR as the service's likely administrative home, allow DLF to set aside for now several unresolved issues for resolution in the specific context of ArtSTOR's own development.
Issues "off the table" for include:
Remaining "on the table" for purposes of this meeting were the following process issues, and the group was asked to provide a "reality check" on present assumptions about these issues:
The catalog service will have a number of direct benefits for VR catalogers and slide and art librarians. It will:
Other audiences: The group affirmed that the service may similarly benefit scholars, teaches and students, as well as curators outside VR narrowly defined (archivists, art librarians, library catalogers, museum professionals). Linda Barnhart observed (to general concurrence) that this development presents an opportunity to rethink the very nature of shared cataloging as it is generally understood in the library community, precisely because this development arises at a moment when distributed technologies offer new opportunities for addressing the need for collaboration.
Levels of use and responsibility:
The service will permit different levels of use including the following
Affirmed by the group as appropriate.
Tools to support these levels of use:
The service will include a range of administrative tools with which service administrators and authorized users can, as appropriate, amend, enhance, and normalize existing descriptive records according to agreed-upon guidelines. Tools will also allow users to create and add new descriptions according to approved guidelines, and to adapt and otherwise employ descriptions in local use.
Administrative tools must include:
User tools must include:
Affirmed by the group as appropriate.
After the meeting concluded, Michael Ester demonstrated the work Luna Imaging has been doing on cross-collection searching for its forthcoming release of Insight 3.0. This feature works by resolving the metadata model employed for any given collection against one of a handful of standards (Dublin Core, MARC, VRA Core 3.0, etc.). The user can view collection metadata in native format or in any of these standard "views."
Greg Zick then demonstrated the CONTENT software developed at the University of Washington for digital asset management. The CONTENT website is at http://contentdm.com and a 60 day trial subscription is available.