July 2009,

/In recent weeks we in the art and architectural history communities 
have learned about the alarming closing and consolidation of numerous 
visual resources libraries around the US. In the letter below, sent to 
dozens of Deans, Library Directors, and Department Heads of Architecture 
and Architectural History programs, SAH President Dietrich Neumann makes 
an appeal to save VR positions and to focus on creating new scholar/VR 
Librarian partnerships. Through the creation of SAHARA, SAH is taking a 
proactive stance to try to preserve visual resources staff and 
departments, and to develop a new, collaborative model that relies on 
the combined talents of both scholars and visual resources librarians. 
Please read Dr. Neumann’s letter below and make a case at your own 
institution to preserve image collections, staff and departments. /

/--Pauline Saliga, Director, Society of Architectural Historians/

/ /I am writing to you in my role as President of the Society of 
Architectural Historians and as one of the co-directors of a new, 
Mellon-funded image database. I would like to share with you some 
concerns we have about recent developments in the field of visual 
resources libraries, and to ask for your help with the creation of our 
new scholarly image database called SAHARA.

Clearly, the way we all retrieve and use images for our lectures and 
research has changed dramatically in recent years. Instead of using 35 
mm slides from our local slide library, most of us retrieve images from 
online sources or use scans from books for use in PowerPoint 
presentations. As a result, the organization of slide collections and 
the work of visual resource librarians are changing. Unfortunately, at 
several institutions (such as Cornell University and UC Irvine) a 
premature restructuring has taken place that has led to a loss of VR 
librarian/curator positions and service to faculty.

While, indeed, millions of images are available online, they are usually 
not accompanied by reliable information, not easily searchable, and not 
driven by a particular, scholarly point of view. Scans from book provide 
copyright problems as soon as they appear on class websites and in hand 
outs. Very few images are available online that scholars can use for 
publication free of charge and copyright. Visual Resources Librarians 
are needed to build scholarly image collections that provide copyright 
free images, accompanied by reliable information, searchable in a 
sophisticated way, and constantly expanding.

The Society of Architectural Historians’ initiative called SAHARA is now 
in the process of making large numbers of images and QTVRs (panoramic 
360 degree photographs) of architecture available online (film clips, 
computer animations etc. are soon to follow). The Andrew W. Mellon 
Foundation generously funded the three-year development phase of this 
initiative and we expect that this will be a scholarly enterprise with 
an enormous influence on teaching, learning and research in our field. 
The Society of Architectural Historians has partnered with ARTstor, the 
premiere digital image archive for educators, as our technology partner 
and SAHARA 1.0 was released on April 1, 2009.

The SAHARA database currently consists of 10,000 images, but is poised 
to gain momentum very quickly. It will cover all aspects of the built 
environment (including landscape architecture) of all times and all 
continents. Its most important aspect is that it is a collaborative 
enterprise. The core of the collection comes from individual scholars, 
as well as from collections that museums and universities will identify 
for us. (So far, collections from MIT, UVa, Brown University and 
numerous individual scholars have been integrated.) Images that are high 
in technical quality and have excellent metadata attached will be 
uploaded to the ARTstor Digital Library, making them accessible to all 
scholars whose institutions subscribe to ARTstor.

The Society of Architectural Historians is in the process of 
establishing a network of editors for SAHARA to make sure that images 
are constantly uploaded and the accompanying information is supplied in 
collaboration by scholars and librarians. For this system to work 
efficiently we envision many collaborative teams between visual 
resources librarians and scholars, and we are now actively recruiting 
both more visual resource librarians and scholars.

We hope that we will receive your support in enlisting the Visual 
Resources Librarians in your institution to contribute some of their 
time, knowledge and ideas for this project, which promises to be of 
enormous value for our profession. Architects, teachers and researchers 
will have access to a constantly growing collection of resources that 
are selected and described by scholars and librarians. Sophisticated 
search tools will allow scholars to find projects previously unknown to 
them, and the collection will become a crucial resource for reliable 
primary material for teaching, research and for publication. As a model 
of collaboration, SAHARA will transform how image collections are 
assembled in the online environment, as it will also become a platform 
for scholarly exchange. By integrating librarianship, technology, and 
scholarship SAHARA will contribute to the development of a new mode of 
scholarly communication, and the development of a collaborative model of 
work among librarians and scholars.

We are also asking for your help in identifying promising collections 
and individual scholars in the field of architecture, urban planning, 
landscape design etc. who might be interested in contributing. This 
resource will be most valuable if it grows very quickly, while, of 
course, retaining its high standards of accuracy and scholarly information.

Please contact either SAHARA’s Project Director, Ann Whiteside 
([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>), or myself ([log in to unmask] 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) if you have questions, or if you would like to 
discuss our requests further.

With warm regards,

Dietrich Neumann

Professor, Yale and Brown Universities

President, Society of Architectural Historians

-- 
**************************************************************
Ann Whiteside
Head, Rotch Library of Architecture & Planning
Project Director, SAHARA
MIT - Room 7-238
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: 617-258-5594
Fax: 617-253-9331
[log in to unmask]

www.libraries.mit.edu
SAHARA
wwww.saharaonline.org

Cataloging Cultural Objects
http://www.vraweb.org/ccoweb/cco/index.html

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