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CORRECTION and apology.  I should not have just combined all messages with names, etc. for all to view, and I apologize.  In particular, one message had information that was not meant to be publicly distributed.  I am resending these messages with any information that might be considered personal or sensitive removed.  Again, please accept my apologies.

---Paula Gabbard

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Regarding my query (directly below), several respondents requested that I post the answers I receive, so they appear below. In addition to these email responses, I called several people and, combining those conversations with what is found below, there are two trends I noticed:  (1) There are more positions within academic libraries for "meta-data librarians."  These positions are particularly critical (and useful) for managing digital image collections.  (2) More non-Library administered Media Collections (or Visual Resource Collections) are morphing from serving their direct constituents to serving the needs of the entire division if not the entire academic community, particularly as they move towards digital collections.                                           ---Paula Gabbard

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My question:
Does anyone know of positions within academic communities for a full time Librarian who serves as "Digital Image Librarian" or "Electronic Image Librarian"  for the entire  community, that is, this person would serve departments beyond art history, archaeology and architecture?

If you do, I'd love to hear from you before tomorrow (Friday, Dec.16) at noon.
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...And the answers:
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(1)
Paula,
  I think that Smith College's Visual Imaging Center serves more than just
the art department: http://www.smith.edu/its/services/insight.html 
I hope someone from Smith can confirm or reject this statement.


(2)
Paula, I think this is a very interesting question.  I don't know of any
actual case, but my guess is that such positions do exist in big
universities where the slide collection falls (or fell) under the
purview of the main library rather than under that of (say) the art
history department.  For example, at Syracuse University the slide
library always served the whole university, not just one or a few
departments.  I believe the same situation exists (or existed) at the
University of Texas, Austin.  If you don't hear back from Barbara Opar
or Janine Henri from the list, I think you would do well to query them
personally to see how things have evolved at their institutions.

Here at ............, where the art and architecture departments gave up on
their slide collections years ago (!), we now contemplate developing
digital image collections (ArtStor being the foundation) for the use of
the entire campus.  Someone here in the main library will be responsible
for maintaining the imagebank(s).  Due to our smallish scale of
operation, I doubt that this would ever become anyone's full-time job;
it will likely be rolled into either the Electronic Resources
Librarian's job (in reference) or my job (in collection development).
The Electronic Resources Librarian is already managing our music
soundbank, which we acquired for the use of the whole campus, not just
to service the Music Department; and that precedent may well indicate
which way the wind is blowing here.

Analogous cases may exist in map librarianship, because of the big shift
to GIS and the applicability of maps to many disciplines.
 
(3)
Dear Paula,
Our curator and assistant curator for the Visual Resources Collection (digital images, slides, photographs) serve the entire School of Arts & Sciences.  As such, they work with many non-art departments - but largely other humanities disciplines and some social science.  In theory, they could provide support for science classes with visual components (ie, chemical structures, genetics,...) but they have yet to be asked to do that.  Although out of their official purview, they do currently offer some level of support to Civil Engineering (part of a School outside of Arts & Sciences) whose faculty teach various structures (bridges, buildings,...).
 
Actually, their position in the administrative structure is evolving.  They currently fit within the School of Arts & Sciences, but were until about 2 years ago wholly within the History of Art department.  Their relationship, at the moment and maybe perpetually, is only collegial with the library.  We work together on a number of things, but they do not fall within the library administration.

This doesn't *really* answer your question as they are not uniquely dedicated to electronic/digital media.  But, they do serve a good portion of the campus - and we anticipate the demands will grow.

Hope this helps.


(4)
Paula,
[A] former position at the University of Wisconson was kind of like that.
They have a digital content group in the library, staffed by librarians,
who serve the entire community.  For the organizational structure

please see http://uwdcc.library.wisc.edu/index.html 


(5)

Paula,
One person comes to mind, although I don't know exactly who she serves:

Trisha (Trish) Rose - she's an ARLIS member
works at the Geisel Library at UCSD (San Diego)
[log in to unmask]

Her title is Image Metadata Librarian.  I don't know her personally (she's a friend of a friend); I've seen her name in conjunction with the Union Catalog of Art Images.

(6)
Paula,
Check out this approach by the Web Media Collaborative at Ohio State
University.

http://wmc.ohio-state.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=main

The Ohio Valley ARLIS Chapter had its fall meeting at OSU's Knowlton
School of Architecture Library and we were treated to an excellent
presentation by WMC Director Diane Dagefoerde and several of the project
managers. The projects
[http://wmc.ohio-state.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=projects] vary in
content. Yes, there is architecture and art history, but also animation,
Buddhism, history, praise poetry and the somewhat open access collection
for the College of the Humanities.
 
Two other resources for you of which you're surely aware.

The University of Virginia's Electronic Text Center and the various
collections produced for its libraries -- lots of literature:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/

And related to it, the Digital Library Federation:

http://www.diglib.org/

The link between the two is David Seaman, Executive Director of the DLF
who was the founding director of the UVA's Etext Center.


(7)
Dear Paula,
I'm not a librarian, that is, I don't have degree in library science, however, I have been the Slides Curator in our university library for the past 24 years, and now that we are going digital, I guess I'll need a new title.
Our slide collection has always served the entire campus. While the collection consists of mainly art, architecture, and archaeology images, many of our patrons have been from Religion and Culture, Musicology, Languages & Civilization, History, etc.. Therefore our new digital collection, consisting partly of licensed image database(s) as well an inhouse database with archival and teaching material, will also be campus-wide.
 
In fact, we will be expanding our outreach.  Our library has an Electronic Services Librarian responsible for the overall library digital initiatives (archives, journals, etc.) and we are collaborating on the digital images service which will basically replace the slides service over time.
 
I will continue to be the person assisting patrons in searching for images, giving demos and presentations, teaching patrons to use the database(s) for presentation preparations and classroom projection, etc.  I will also continue to provide metadata for images uploaded inhouse.
So, except for the "librarian" part, I think I would have such a role as you describe.
Of course, the digital part is basically just beginning for me in January, so I don't have the experience behind me yet...
 
Hope this helps you.

 
(8)
Ms. Gabbard:

I am the Visual Resource Librarian at ..........

My responsibilities and collections serve the entire College. While I do
not have the word "digital" or "electronic" in my title, I believe the
term "visual resources" was selected for my position to imply that the
resources in question would be more than photographic. I believe there are
similar positions at RISD and the Design and Art College at the University
of Cincinnati.

I have not heard of a Digital Image Librarian for an entire university,
but I believe there may be Electronic Resource Librarians at larger
institutions. You may want to contact the University of Cincinnati
regarding an Electronic Resources Librarian- I believe they have
restructured their main library to accommodate a number of electronic
initiatives. Hope this helps.

(9)
I've seen listings for Digital Services Librarian or Digital
Projects...but I think that encompasses more than just images. I believe
its more of a digitizing type of thing. You might try the Visual
Resources Association webpage and see what kind of listings they have.

 
(10)
Dear Paula,
My position as Visual Resources Curator within the Department of Art History was expanded last year to include the whole College of Liberal Arts which includes the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. I am not affiliated with the Library, however, but with the Office of Information Technology.

We work with departments who apply for funding to convert their analog materials, and then add them all to a centralized database. We are still experiencing growing pains, but plan to roll out the combined database in the next 6 months.

Is this what you meant?
 
(11)
Hi Paula,
I'm sort of doing that right now on a one year part-time appointment at .....   My title is Digital Collections Librarian, and I'm developing an image database served up by the library, reporting to the library, but working in conjunction with the School of Art.   The collection is intended to serve all campus users, limited to campus access.

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