Posted for MCN. Pardon any
duplication.
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Digital Photography Themes at MCN
2003
Join us for the Museum Computer Network's 2003
conference in Las Vegas, Nevada where as part of our conference theme
"Balancing Museum Technology and Transformation" we
look at the role of digital imaging in a variety of contexts.
See our complete program at www.mcn.edu/mcn2003/index.html and register online!
Museums are increasingly using digital imaging
as a companion to and a replacement for conventional analog
photography. The uses of digital images include multimedia and web
publishing, pre-press lithography, reference in collection management,
conservation documentation and desktop video.
This workshop will explore the strategies of
digitization for museums applications and present the various tools
for image capture and quality evaluation as well as how to capitalize
on in-house resources.
A technical overview will be an important part
of the workshop, yet substantial time will be devoted to workflow
issues and return on investment. Directed at photographers, department
heads, managers, educators, administrators, deputy directors or any
museum professional wishing to take advantage of the digital
environment. Learn when and how to phase out analog photography where
necessary while still supporting it where appropriate.
Wednesday, November 5: Digital
Video. A workshop by Michael Borthwick, of Michael Borthwick
Consulting Pty, Melbourne, Australia.
Whether producing video, or incorporating the
moving image into their collections, museums must negotiate what can
seem a mysterious landscape of hardware, software, standards and
storage systems. This workshop will demystify video as a medium by
orienting participants within this landscape. It will examine delivery
via DVD, kiosks and the web and explore the requirements for basic PC
and Macintosh editing systems that will enable museums (and even their
visitors) to produce content for these platforms.
Panelists include:
David Gilblom
President
Alternative Vision Corporation (Los Altos,
CA)
James Pohlman
Director of Operations, Digital
Cameras
Eastman Kodak Company (Rochester,
NY)
Howard Goldstein
Vice President
Center for Digital Imaging (New York,
NY)
Michael Brugnoni
Digital Imaging Support
Specialist
Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland,
OH)
Jane Sledge
Information and Technology
Manager
National Museum of the American Indian
(Washington, DC)
Daniel Stowell
Director of the Papers of Abraham
Lincoln
Lincoln Presidential Library (Springfield,
IL)
Museums are a small but important
and rapidly growing market segment for high quality digital cameras
capable of accurately and efficiently capturing the images of many
types of art objects. However, the museum community has typically not
been effective in communicating their special needs with camera
developers. As a result, museum camera needs are left to be met by the
products designed and optimized for other market segments and
consumers. This session brings together camera manufacturers and
developers, digital imaging experts, and museum photographers to
explore the problems with current digital cameras, the prospects and
potential for new digital photography technology (e.g. Foveon chip,
special lenses, new means of profiling, etc.), potential synergies
with other market niches, and the difficulties manufacturers encounter
when trying to accommodate museums' needs. This session will also
report on the special "Dialog with a Manufacturer" meeting
sponsored by MCN and held last June at the Cleveland Museum of Art,
which focused on the potential for developing a special Foveon camera
for the museum market. and helped establish the framework for this
session. MCN hopes that this will be the first in a series of
"Dialogs with Industry" which will help the museum community
work with software and hardware industries to explore and meet museum
needs.
Saturday, November 8: Collections on the
Move: Building an Image Database with Extensis Portfolio. A
presentation by Daniel Rothbart, Smithsonian National Museum of the
American Indian
The Smithsonian National Museum of the
American Indian is currently moving some 800,000 Native American
objects from a crowded warehouse in the Bronx, New York, to a state of
the art storage facility in Suitland, Maryland. As the Assistant Move
Coordinator - Imaging my primary duty is to manage a team of six staff
members who image each of the objects in the museums collection in a
studio environment before they travel. Thus far we have imaged two
terabytes of high-resolution TIF and JPEG files that are used in the
proprietary NMAI Registration Information Tracking System (RITS)
database. When I joined the move project I also inherited over 1,500
digital images that document this historic project from 1999 to the
present. The images document moving massive objects such as Haida
totem poles, Native American watercraft, and dwellings, but also
record the daily registration, conservation, imaging, and packing of
the George Gustav Heye collection of Native American Art. Because most
of the staff members engaged in the move process will leave the museum
for other employment after the move is complete, there is an urgent
need to organize these images and associate them with specific
information and memories that only current move employees can
provide.
I decided to create a database of the images
with Extensis Portfolio Server. This application enables us to
associate the images with metadata to give them a meaningful, accurate
context for future use by researchers. The NMAI has not yet adopted a
comprehensive image management database system, but Portfolio Server
allows us to export tab delimited files with each of the meta data
fields, so that the information can be imported into any future
database. With the blessing of the NMAI IT Department, we installed
the program on a node of the museum network in Washington D.C. from
which it can be used by multiple users in both the Bronx and Suitland
locations. We developed a system for managing the database and
delegating access and publishing privileges. We also developed a
two-tiered backup regimen that includes both tape and exported tab
delimited files. Thus far the project has proved very successful. It
was recently adopted by the Move Conservation Department to organize
its images of conservation treatments, and the NMAI Repatriation,
Photo Services, and Archives Departments have all expressed interest
in the program.
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Leigh Gates, Slide Librarian
MacLean Visual Resources Center, Ryerson Library
The Art Institute of Chicago
37 S. Wabash, Chicago IL 60603
[log in to unmask]
tel: 312/899-1223 fax: 312/263-0141