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Hi, everyone,
It's taken me an awfully long time to sum up what people told me about
AMICO, but here it is:
-Several institutions had decided against it, since it is so
expensive, and not as relevant to university-level teaching as it
could be (AMICO has started marketing to the K-12 market lately).
-The University of Toronto was a testbed site, and complained of not
having enough infrastructure to support using the database in the
classroom; also, they found that the images weren't specific enough to
art history classes, and that art history professors were resistant to
using it.
-The University of Calgary is using it; Michael May is the contact
there. They have an enthusiastic art history professor who is one of
the main reasons for their using it.
-AMICO is a database of museum holdings, but many professors aren't
teaching from museum holdings anymore.
-At their meeting this year in Pittsburgh, the Art and Design School
Directors generally agreed that the content was not relevant enough,
and that nobody had the infrastructure to really use the database to
advantage.
-Syracuse University tested it and found that the images weren't the
ones used by most art history professors, and were often dark or not
sharp and didn't have enough information accompanying them. They also
found it too expensive, and better suited to studio art classes than
art history classes. The librarian there recommended Grove's
Dictionary of Art Online's Bridgeman images over AMICO, and mentioned
the many museums that are digitizing their own collections, such as
the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and the San Francisco art
museums.
-Herron Art Library has found their faculty to be rather resistant to
using AMICO, but says the younger faculty are more interested. The
greatest use of it they have found is as an electronic image reserve
for students and faculty.
-Western Michigan University was a testbed site, and is still using
AMICO. They've found that many students outside of the visual arts, in
theatre design, consumer science, and history, use the database. The
librarian there finds it useful, as do the students. She's found the
professors to be less enthusiastic, however. She's also found that
training users is essential, and takes a lot of time, but that it's
one way to get students and faculty both to use the database. The
user's guide that she made for the database is at:
http://www.wmich.edu/library/vrl/AMICO-guide.html
At the University of Regina, we have decided to go with AMICO for a
year and evaluate it after that. We had some money that needed to be
used, or we might not have subscribed at all, due to the expense.
However, we have an Arts Education program here for K-12 that should
find it most useful, as well as other departments such as History. One
of our new studio professors is very positive about it.
Donna
Donna Bowman
Visual Arts Librarian
Education/Fine Arts Library
University of Regina
Regina, SK
S4S 0A2
Ph: (306)585-5118
Fax: (306)585-5115
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