Monday, April 16, 2018

Visual Resources Association Foundation announces 2018 Project Grant recipient

The Board of Directors of the Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF) is pleased to present the 2018 VRAF Project Grant in the amount of $3000 to James Sobczak, Digital Imaging Assistant II, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

The University of Washington has more than 81 Collections with over 250,000 digital assets depicted from its Special Collections in CONTENTdm. The University of Washington's School of Art + Art History + Design's Visual Services Department oversees their in-house MDID Collection, ARTstor, and UW Image Bank. The VRAF Project Grant will allow University of Washington's School of Art + Art History + Design to digitize a collection donation of 26,800+ 35mm slides from Patricia Young, which will provide a stipend to graduate student employees. The graduate student employees will work 4.5 hours per week for an estimated 40 weeks with software and technology provided by the University of Washington and UW's School of Art + Art History + Design. The graduate students will be spearheaded by three University of Washington team members with project management and supervisory role experiences. The PYC Collection will be housed in their MDID collection, which crosswalks with CONTENTdm for further outreach to researchers worldwide. This project will also allow the PYC Collection graduate student workers to improve upon the GIS linking of images, network mapping of metadata, and semantic query integration. In accordance with its mission to support broad access to visual information, the VRAF is pleased to support a project that extends digitization and dissemination of visual culture into expanded fields of inquiry.

The VRAF Project Grant Program reflects the broad mission of the VRAF to advance knowledge in the field of visual resources and image management and to provide educational and training opportunities in support of broad access to visual information in the digital age. For more information about the VRAF, the VRAF Project Grant, and other VRAF programs, please visit vrafoundation.com.