I just wanted to second Rebecca's comment that
art books are different than text books--and
especially that illustrations are different
than words.
As someone directly involved with creating
online facsimiles of books, I know from first-hand
frustration how inadequate keyword searches
(and OCR) are in providing access to pictorial
material contained in digital books. I'd recognize a
picture of a chair, you'd recognize a picture
of a chair...but OCR needs the word "chair"
(printed in a clear font, usually not engraved script)
to enable a keyword search for chair. Browsing
becomes not just a choice but a necessity when
looking for illustrations.
Although I just announced UW-Madison's new interface
enhancements to this list, I'd like to repeat
in the context of this discussion and ask your
professional opinion (feel free to be negative!)
whether this goes toward solving the browsing problem.
We've borrowed the display one customarily sees in
image databases and merged it with the sequencing
function of page-by-page displays of online books.
This allows one to see thumbnails of 20 sequential
pages of the online book. Users can then select
a desired page from the display.
If you go to, e.g.,
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/DLDecArts.ReptonSketches
and click "display gallery view" (bottom link on left bar)
you see what I mean.
This works contextually as well. If one keyword searches
and navigates to any individual page, then the "display
gallery view" function will show that thumbnail surrounded
by c. 10 page images to either side.
I'm not aware that any other full-text aggregators
(Evans, EBO, ECCO, Alexander Street Press, etc.) do anything
similar. If you know of other instances, I'd be glad
to hear of them. (Locally, this was the idea of our
library director, Ken Frazier, and programed in-house.)
I'd like to see this function enabled more widely for
the use of researchers in visual culture. Perhaps if
you think this is a step in the right direction, we
can lobby the commercial aggregators to tweak their
display options also.
Thanks for your patience in letting me sound off on an
issue near and dear to my heart at this moment!
--Linda
Linda Duychak, Academic Librarian
Kohler Art Library/Digital Content Group
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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