Howard Besser Associate Professor UCLA School of Educ & Info Studies

1. Delivery, Deployment, and Use of Digital Images: Lessons from a major University/Museum Consortial Project Howard Besser Associate Professor UCLA School of Educ & Info Studies http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/ http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/mellon

2. Delivery, Deployment, and Use of Digital Images- • The Museum Educational Site Licensing Project (MESL) • The UCB Mellon Grant • Comparing MESL User Interfaces • Comparing MESL Search Discrepancies • Assessing University & Museum Costs • Assessing Costs of Slide Libraries • Examining Faculty & Student Use & Usefullness

3. Distribution of Digital Images and Metadata on 7 University Campuses:the Museum Educational Site Licensing Project- MESL Goals & Structures Example of a MESL University Site MESL Timeline and Constraints Sample MESL implementations

4. Museum Educational Site Licensing Project • Discover what it takes for museums to prepare and deliver images & text • procedures, costs, prior knowledge, standards • Identify factors needed to increase use of museum images by the educational community • Create a testbed which will help identify, review, & evaluate other factors important to the participants • security, unauthorized use, text identification accompanying each image

5. MESL Goals and Objectives • Define the terms and conditions for the educational use of digitized museum images and information distributed over campus networks. • Develop, test and evaluate procedures, mechanisms, and standards for the collection and dissemination of digital images and information. • Propose the framework of a broadly-based system for the ongoing distribution and educational use of museum images and information. • Document and communicate experience and discoveries of the project. • Begin to examine the impact of broad distribution of digital images on both museums and universities

6. Sample MESL Query

7. Sample MESL Query

8. Samples from a MESL Site

9. Samples from a MESL Site

10. MESL Origins/History • Lack of standards in Museum community • Museums approached by growing number of digital image distributors • Unknown issues around both “terms & conditions” and delivery • Serving new audiences

11. MESL Participants (Museums/Repositories) • Fowler Museum of Cultural History • International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House • Harvard University Art Museums • Library of Congress • Houston Museum of Fine Arts • National Gallery of Art • National Museum of American Art

12. MESL Participants (Universities) • American University • Columbia University • Cornell University • University of Illinois • University of Maryland • University of Michigan • University of Virginia

13. 9/94--Call for participation 11/94--Application deadline 12/94--Selection of participants announced 2/95--First participants meeting Summer/95--First distribution Fall/95--Courses taught w/MESL material Summer/96--Second distribution Summer/96--Mellon/MESL award announced 7/97--Project officially ends 1997/98--Universities to continue using MESL material w/o further distribution (pending contractual agreement) 11/97--Mellon datagathering ends 2/98--Final Mellon report due Timeline

14. Project Constraints • Extremely short lead-time before first distribution • Need to rely primarily upon repurposing of existing data • Existing Museum information is compiled for internal purposes • Lack of standards for either text or image

15. Metadata Issues (Text) • Poor history of Museum standards • Needs standards for: • fields • controlled vocabulary • data exchange

16. Authority control over artist name • Goya y Lucinetes, Francisco de (Houston) • Goya y Lucientes, Francisco Jose de (Harvard) • Goya, Francisco de (NGA)

17. 1. data agreement number 2. holding institution 3. accession number 4. accession method 5. credit line 6. label 7. object type/ objectclass/ object name 8. object title/caption 9. creator/maker - name 10. creator/maker - culture/nationality 11. creator/maker - role 12. creation place 13. creation begin date 14. creation end date 15. creation technique/method/process 16. material/medium 17. support 18. dimension/extent-quantity-unit 19. parts/pieces 20. marks/inscriptions 21. edition/state 22. associated events, people, organizations, places 23. concepts/subject 24. concepts/style-period 25. concepts/function 26. description 27. accompanying image - file name 28. accompanying image - caption 29. accompanying image - capture data 30. accompanying document - file name 31. accompanying document - type 32. version identification Fields in MESL Data Dictionary (1.1)

18. Museum Collectn Mgmt System 1. object title/caption 2. accession method 3. accession number 4. label 5. credit line 6. creation end date 7. object type/ objectclass/ object name 8. holding institution 9. ... 10. ... ... ... 99. creation begin date 100. data agreement number 101. creation ... MESL Data Dictionary 1. data agreement number 2. holding institution 3. accession number 4. ccession method 5. credit line 6. label 7. object type/ objectclass/ object name 8. object title/caption 9. creator/maker - name 10. creator/maker - culture/nationality 11. creator/maker - role 12. creation place 13. creation begin date 14. creation end date 15. creation technique/method/process 16. material/medium

19. Standards Issues for Images • Problems of lack of common vocabulary and standards. • What size images to transmit? • What format?

20. MESL Images: Characteristics

21. MESL Images: Capture Methods

22. Issues Raised by MESL Deployment • Choice of Distribution Methods • Delivery front-end & search interface • Image distribution/deployment • Formats for structuring text • Security • Delivery & deployment of clean & consistent data

23. Teaching issues • Infrastructure • New teaching approaches • Creating New Image Sets (Views) • Teaching tools

24. Creating New Image Sets (Views)

25. Creating New Image Sets (Views)

26. Teaching Tools

27. Teaching Tools <head> <!-- ** TITLE OF YOUR PAGE GOES HERE ** --> <title>UVA MESL--Project Example (Comparison)</title> <center> <!-- ** IF YOU HAVE A GRAPHIC, IT GOES HERE ** --> <img src="../graphics/mesl.gif" height=51 width=540> <p> </head> <body> <!-- ** HEADER INFORMATION GOES HERE ** --> <h1>Comparison</h1> <h4> <i> Course: </i> Art 100<br> <i> Instructor: </i> Professor Smith<Br> <i>Date: </i> January 20, 1997</h4> </center> <hr> <p> <!-- ** DIRECTIONS OR DESCRIPTION GOES HERE ** --> <b>ASSIGNMENT: </b> Compare and contrast the two artists' representations

28. Partnering • Feedback mechanisms • Agreement on proper deployment • Site License contracts • Potential long-term cooperative ventures • Security

29. Security Needs • Authentication • Encryption • Watermarking • Encapsulation

30. Examples from the MESL implementations- • User Interface • Browsing • Query options • Retrieval • Layout and display

31. Comparing MESL queriesMost implementations: • Several layers of explanatory info before query formation • HTML forms with menu choices • Forms for both simple and complex searches • Differed in choice of indexed fields

32. The Querying Study -- Who • 8 students given access over 1-month period • none had extensive art historical background (reseembling naive users)

33. The Querying Study -- Assignment • compare user interface and display options from site to site • navigation, chunking, ordering • button placement • search options and layout of search results • compare size and quality of thumbnail and larger images • perform 3 identical sarches at each site and compare results

34. Query for “surreal”

35. Query for “haystack”

36. Query for “oil portraits of children”

37. “Madonna” Query • columbia (99) • michigan (66) • virginia (66) • cornell (65) • illinois (65) • maryland (0)

38. “Africa” Query • illinois (273) • virginia (249) • cornell (195) • michigan (104) • columbia (99) • maryland (0)

39. Other Interesting Queries • title=“birth” • “black and white” • French still life • Madonna and Child

40. Search Discrepancy -- What Happened? • different mapping btwn original data fields and perceived user needs • different ways in which the various search engines work

41. 1. data agreement number 2. holding institution 3. accession number 4. ccession method 5. credit line 6. label 7. object type/ objectclass/ object name 8. object title/caption 9. creator/maker - name 10. creator/maker - culture/nationality 11. creator/maker - role 12. creation place 13. creation begin date 14. creation end date 15. creation technique/method/process 16. material/medium 17. support 18. dimension/extent-quantity-unit 19. parts/pieces 20. marks/inscriptions 21. edition/state 22. associated events, people, organizations, places 23. concepts/subject 24. concepts/style-period 25. concepts/function 26. description 27. accompanying image - file name 28. accompanying image - caption 29. accompanying image - capture data 30. accompanying document - file name 31. accompanying document - type 32. version identification Fields indexed from MESL Data Dictionary (1)

42. 1. data agreement number 2. holding institution 3. accession number 4. ccession method 5. credit line 6. label 7. object type/ objectclass/ object name 8. object title/caption 9. creator/maker - name 10. creator/maker - culture/nationality 11. creator/maker - role 12. creation place 13. creation begin date 14. creation end date 15. creation technique/method/process 16.material/medium 17. support 18. dimension/extent-quantity-unit 19. parts/pieces 20. marks/inscriptions 21. edition/state 22. associated events, people, organizations, places 23. concepts/subject 24. concepts/style-period 25. concepts/function 26. description 27. accompanying image - file name 28. accompanying image - caption 29. accompanying image - capture data 30. accompanying document - file name 31. accompanying document - type 32. version identification Fields indexed from MESL Data Dictionary (2)

43. 1. data agreement number 2. holding institution 3. accession number 4. ccession method 5. credit line 6. label 7. object type/ objectclass/ object name 8. object title/caption 9. creator/maker - name 10. creator/maker - culture/nationality 11. creator/maker - role 12. creation place 13. creation begin date 14. creation end date 15. creation technique/method/process 16. material/medium 17. support 18. dimension/extent-quantity-unit 19. parts/pieces 20. marks/inscriptions 21. edition/state 22. associated events, people, organizations, places 23. concepts/subject 24. concepts/style-period 25. concepts/function 26. description 27. accompanying image - file name 28. accompanying image - caption 29. accompanying image - capture data 30. accompanying document - file name 31. accompanying document - type 32. version identification Fields indexed from MESL Data Dictionary (3)