In her paper “Time Horizon 2020: Library Renaissance,” Susan Gibbons, Vice Provost and Dean, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester, speculates how the next decade will mark the renaissance of technical services and a complete transformation of collection development. Several of her projected changes would seem to apply to the future of visual resource collections as well.
In particular, these two points struck me:
“The emphasis of technical services will change from the acquisition of content to the user’s discovery of content. A library’s success will be defined by whether its users are finding the best materials easily and quickly, rather than by collection metrics…The success of these services will be dependent upon the availability and quality of metadata.”
“The need for all content to have some online manifestation, whether a full-text scan or a metadata record, will force all of a library’s hidden collections into the light, including manuscripts, images and other special collections.”
Metadata associated with images – in the form of shared, structured standards – has always been important to visual resources managers and librarians who sought to make their collections findable and discoverable to an audience. Just think of the on-going efforts of the VRA and other professional organizations to develop standards, schema and crosswalks for image metadata, or the amount of discussion on our listservs devoted to these issues. But today you can hardly talk about digital libraries, data repositories and Web 2.0 without the mention of metadata.
The acknowledgment that metadata is an essential element in the information infrastructure is rewarding. Metadata is ubiquitous, in the sciences, medicine, economics, education, industry, and government, as well as the arts -- in all disciplines which comprise our world today.
In the coming years, the fundamental “what” of technical services and library and visual collections will not change. However, we must be ready for the radical transformation in the “how” and “why” of these activities. Susan Gibbons believes that “the focus will shift from disparate silos of information resources to a mandated expectation that those silos can communicate and interact in ways that meet the expectations of library users.”
It is nice that as visual resources professionals, we are the established experts in developing demonstrable useful information standards for images, and that we have the skills and experience in place to leverage our knowledge with other disciplines, organizations and industries which are increasingly relying on quality metadata.
See “Time Horizon 2020: Library Renaissance”, by Susan Gibbons:
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/confevents/upcoming/ala/library_renaissance.pdf
"I can't speak to piracy in other content arenas, but with respect to photography, advances in technology now allow image piracy rates on the internet to be quantified to an extent sufficient to estimate piracy rates with some accuracy. Image recognition technology may be used to locate instances of known images on web sites, and license data may then be used to determine whether or not each instance is authorized. Not all sites can be sampled, nor can all every instance of every image be identified, but it is possible to quantify estimated piracy rates via representative sampling.Jeff Sedlick
In 2003, PicScout http://www.picscout.com/ (an Israeli image recognition company) searched commercial web sites for instances of images of known ownership. Nine out of every ten published images were found to be used without permission or knowledge of the rights holders.
In 2005, PicScout used a new reference group of 20,000 sample images (on this occasion, provided by a group of stock photographers), and found that 1 out of every 17 copies of these images published on commercial web sites was published without the knowledge or permission of the rights holder. In the USA, the rate of misuse found in this survey was 64%. In Germany, 23%. In the UK, 13%.
PicScout reports that over a seven year period, it found that 85% of images found on commercial websites were published without the knowledge or permission of the rights holders.
In a recent LA Times article (Sept 9, 2009), Gettyimages reported that it identifies approximately 42,000 examples of copyright infringement per year, while Corbis reported the identification of approximately 70,000 infringements each year. Importantly, these figures represent only the infringements that have been detected. It is reasonable to assume that these figures represent a small fraction of actual unauthorized usages.
I am not writing to encourage or suggest heightened enforcement or penalties for piracy, nor am I expressing an opinion on copyright law, website spidering or digital rights management. I am merely pointing out that the report in question does not indicate that piracy rates are lower than estimated by industry, and that in the photography content industry, technology now allows some quantification of piracy rates. Perfect. I would not disagree with an opinion that the content industry has used piracy statistics in lobbying for support from legislators. But any attempt to claim that the figures are overstated will be frustrated by the very same issue identified in the report -- such claims cannot be quantified."
A new term has been buzzing around library literature for the past few years: digital curation. Traditionally, curation was the act of organizing and maintaining a collection of artworks or artifacts. Digital curation, broadly interpreted, is about maintaining and adding value to a trusted body of digital information for current and future use. It is the active management and appraisal of digital information over its entire life cycle. Digital preservation focuses on the actions taken to ensure the accessibility of digital information across time and new technologies.
-They have purchased collections to support their local organizations.
-They have curated special collections of unique or valuable items.
The focus for most libraries or collections is changing to concentrate on the second role. In the future, the bulk of what will be curated will be digital. These two highly complementary concepts should take into account the needs of current and future users.
An article of interest: David W. Lewis, “A Strategy for Academic Libraries in the First Quarter of the 21st Century,” http://hdl.handle.net/1805/953
I recently took a half-day workshop in grant writing by Jonathan O’Brien which was sponsored by an organization offering Technical Assistance Grants. He compares writing grant proposals to writing screenplays - a useful slant for organizing one’s thinking about important elements to be included. “Time is of the essence” took on new meaning for me. He encourages us to present our proposal within a context of urgency and state the consequences if the project is not funded. He suggests this will get your proposal set in the “consider” pile on the first review. Of course the proposal still has to be compelling and well documented to make it through the process toward funding.
While investigating funding source for a couple of computers for an arts organization, I discovered a case for getting to know staff at the granting agencies... On the website the scenarios were all organizational development with no mention of actual equipment funding. By talking to an assistant at the granting agency I learned equipment would be an excellent cause and was encouraged to apply. The trick is to focus on how the equipment, program or materials (digital images) will serve your audience - not how it will serve the staff or department. Connect each reason of need to an overall goal for your organization. Example - With a goal of creating broad support to develop a more stable base for programming by enhancing communication and increasing membership, the computers will allow us to expand our correspondence with the larger community by creating an email list to share upcoming events, reminders, and an avenue for dialog. Specific details also enhances your request. Example - The single ten-year-old computer has crashed several times in the past year bring all work to a halt each time; most recently it caused a week’s delay in sending invitations to artists to participate in an exhibition, which is a major fund-raiser for the operations of the Center.
NOTE:
The National Endowment for the Humanities http://www.neh.gov/
The Humanities Collections and Reference Resources
http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/HCRR.html
Deadline: July 15, 2010
If this is a perfect match for your project and you lack experience in grant proposal writing, get help from someone experienced in Federal grants...
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