----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Please excuse any cross-posting to lists.
Call for Papers
15th Annual Visual Resources Association Conference
February 11 - 15, 1997
New York City
The fifteenth annual Visual Resources Association conference
will take place February 11-15, 1997 in New York City, with the
Sheraton New York (811 7th Avenue) serving as the conference
headquarters. Pre-registration materials will be mailed in early
November. The pre-registration rate will be $75 and the on-site
registration will be $95. Students with an identificaton card valid
at time of registration may register for $45. Late registrations
will not be accepted this year.
The VRA Vice President Pat Keats and the local arrangements
committee in New York, chaired by Margaret Richardson the Slide
Curator at the Pratt Institute in New York and local chapter
president, are working on an exciting program. In addition to the
sessions, workshops and roundtable discussions listed below, the
conference planners are making arrangements for self-guided tours of
local slide libraries, a New York Survival guide, tours of Princeton
and Soho galleries and another Luraine Tansey Travel Award Dinner,
plus other events yet to be planned.
Contact the session, workshop, or roundtable moderators listed
below to submit paper proposals for the conference program.
Abstracts should be no more than one page, and must be received by
the moderators no later than September 15, 1996. If you have any
general questions about the conference, please contact Patricia
Keats, VRA Vice-President, Director of the Library, The California
Historical Society, 678 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94105. (415)
357-1848, ext. 19. FAX: (415) 357-1850. Email: [log in to unmask]
Pre -Conference Workshops - no papers needed
February 11 1-5pm, Tuesday
Basics of Imaging.
Dennis Kois, Kois & Associates, 156 Fifth Avenue, Suite 228, New
York, NY 10010. (212) 255-1956, x 313. Email: [log in to unmask]
Dennis Kois is a graphic designer/computer consultant and has worked
with the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as being Editor and Art
Director for indelibleNews, a monthly that reviews digital publishing
titles/sites/issues.
Cost and details will be provided in pre-registration packets.
Data Migration Projects.
Susan J. Williams, Media Specialist, Media Resources Center,
Rochester Institute of Technology, 91 Lomb memorial Library,
Rochester, NY 14623-5603. (716) 475-6696. FAX: (716) 475-2081.
Email: [log in to unmask]
This workshop will focus on real project examples and
documentation on using the following software products: Excel,
Embark, Filemaker Pro 3.0 VRMS Image AXS, and perhaps RE:Discovery.
Most curators are faced with needing to export and import our data
into new software "shells." Although the software products differ,
the data needs, and goals of such projects offer us common ground to
talk about data clean-up, development of data "dictionaries" or
templates, and attaching digital images to your textual data. The
emphasis will be on pragmatic aspects of such a project.
Cost and details will be provided in pre-registration packets.
Sessions and Roundtables
February 12, Wednesday
Session I: What Can Art /Architecture Librarians and Visual Resources
Curators Learn From Each Other? Panel discussion. Moderator: Ann
Whiteside, Visual Resources Librarian, Frances Loeb Library, Graduate
School of Design, Harvard University, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA
02138. (617) 495-5674. Email: [log in to unmask]
The world of book and visual materials collections evolved
separately - often in isolation from each other. However, with the
recent development of digital technologies and their integration into
both the library and academic environments, the traditional
boundaries between book libraries and visual resources collections
are blurring. Libraries now collect image products which in the past
were the purview of visual resources collections. Conversely, visual
resources collections, as they become available in digitized form are
available to broad audiences as rich study and research tools. The
boundaries are no longer definitive; we need to share our knowledge
and expertise to work together to provide access to many different
types of materials in a variety of settings. Colleagues representing
different perspectives will speak about issues involved in
establishing collaborative cooperation in this area.
Speakers will include librarians and curators from an art library,
a museum, a visual resources collection, an art history department,
and a visual resources curator from an architecture environment
(Margaret Webster, Cornell University.)
Session II: Managing a One-Person Slide Library. Moderator: Peggy
Ottens, Slide Curator, Fine Arts Dept., Dickinson College, Box 1773,
Carlisle, PA 17013-2896. (717) 245-1374, FAX: (717)245-1937. Email:
[log in to unmask]
Session will address the needs of one-person slide libraries, in
small institutions . Where do we fit into the big picture of the
institution and our profession?
Session III: Developing Visual Resources Courses on Campus.
Moderator: Kathe Albrecht, Visual Resources Manager, Dept. of Art/Art
History, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington,
D.C. 20016-8004. (202) 885-1675. FAX:(202)885-1132. Email:
[log in to unmask]
Session would discuss the creation of visual resources courses for
art history or other courses on university campuses. Included in
these sessions are information on networked rsources, and
access/description information for the MESL Project. Also covered
are issues of intellectual property rights in the new media,
importance of screening networked information for fact vs. opinion,
methods of electronic citation, etc.
February 13 - Thursday
Session IV: Visual Resources Professional as Art Historian: The
Domain Specialist. Moderator: Tina Bissell, Associate Curator, Slide
and Photograph Collection, Dept. of the History of Art, University of
Michigan, 519 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1357. (313)
396-0296. FAX: (313)647-4121. Email: [log in to unmask]
Papers sought discussing the impact/influence of graduate-level
education in the history of art on visual resources professionals
primarily in academic or museum collections where clientele is made
up largely by art historians and archaeologists. How has your area
expertise helped in obtaining, maintaining and expanding your
position? How has it influenced your job title and/or status at your
institution, including working relationships with faculty? For the
portion of your clientele that is less familiar with the history of
art and architecture, is your knowledge indispensable for meeting
their needs? Do your have institutional support for furthering your
domain proficiency? How crucial have you found non-English language
facility to be? Will databases and shared cataloging information
make visual repertoire and iconographic familiarity obsolete in the
future OR will these skills become crucial in our expanding roles as
educational collaborators. How can we effectively supervise and best
benefit from the efforts of employees who do not have a background in
the field? Results of a member-wide survey dealing with these issues
will be reported as part of the session. The survey will be mailed
out with the Fall issue of the Bulletin.
Session V: On the Margins: Visual Resources Collections and
Illuminated Manuscripts. Moderator: Elizabeth O'Keefe, Head of
Cataloging, Pierpont Morgan Library, 29 E. 36th Street, New York, NY
10016. (212) 685-008. FAX: (212)685-4740. Email: [log in to unmask]
Illuminated manuscripts are crucial to the study of Medieval and
Renaissance art, and images drawn from these manuscripts form a
significant part of most visual resoruces collections. But
documenting these images poses enormous problems. The information
accompanying the slides is often incomplete or incorrect; even when
it is accurate, the cataloger is faced with the problem of how to
organize the information data in some sort of coherent data structure
which will facilitate retrieval. The speakers in this panel
discussion will try to define the core data elements for the
description of illuminated manuscripts (what types of information
should the cataloguer be seeking and/or incorporating in a record?),
and to map the soruces and methods of research most useful to someone
attempting to identify an image from an illuminated manuscripts.
Speakers will include: William Voelkle, Curator of Medieval and
Renaissance Manuscripts at the Morgan, Eileen Fry, Slide Librarian,
Indiana University, Maria Oldal, Cataloger, Morgan Library and an art
historian.
Roundtable I: Who has the Perfect Mona Lisa, Part Deux: Cataloging
and Access in Digitized Collections. Moderator: Jenni Rodda, Curator,
Visual Resources Collections, Institute of Fine Arts, New York
University, 1 East 78th St., New York, NY 10021. (212)772-5872.
FAX: (212) 772-5807. Email: [log in to unmask]
As visual resources collections continue the transition from
traditional photographic media to electronic image acquisition, the
role of image cataloging is changing. Is the physical location of
the original slide or photograph, as determined by its idiosyncratic
classification number, as important as the descriptors used in an
image database? These descriptors, analagous to a call number,
locate the same image within a database, rather than within a drawer
of other slides. Since we have argued back and forth about universal
cataloging, how can we agree on a common language for the building of
image databases? Must we all use the same software, for example, or
the same vocabulary lists, to ensure our images will continue to be
accessible? Lively and substantive discussion will be encouraged.
Roundtable II: Conservation Practices: The Ideal / The Reality: Some
Consequences / Some Solutions. Moderator: Margo Ballantyne, Slide
Curator, Art Dept., Lewis & Clark College, 0165 SW Palatine Hill
Road, Portland, OR 97219-7899. (503) 768-7387. FAX: (503) 768-7401.
Email: [log in to unmask]
Session will start with what we know the "ideal" to be and then
"get real" with what alot of slide librarians have to live with.
Examples will be shown, and examples of interesting and practical
solutions will also be shown. Since most people do not have and will
not ever have ideal climate controls in their slide libraries, some
basic things one can do will be presented. Also, some advice about
conservation practices for the newer technologies (i.e. CD's, etc.)
will be given.
February 14 - Friday
Session VI: Access to Images in Non-Academic Collections. Moderator:
Adina Lerner, Assistant Archivist, The Walt Disney Archives, 500 S.
Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521-1200. (818) 560-5424. FAx: (818)
842-3957. Email: [log in to unmask]
Session will deal with image collections in disciplines other
than art, more specifically in a for-profit environment. How these
corporate digitized collections get access to their images, what kind
of cataloging do they use. These collections have very different
requirements, they usually own the copyright, but still have to
control image access within their company. Possible speakers will
include archivists and curators from corporate and for-profit
institutions.
New Technologies Roundup : VRA plans to repeat the popular technology
roundup. Coordinators: Anne Vollmann Bible, Librarian, The
Photograph & Slide Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 100 Fifth
Avenue, New York, NY 10028. (212)650-2230, ext. 3230. FAX: (212)
861-2458. AND Claire Granpierre, Curator, Visual Resources
Collection, Rm. L06, CUNY Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd St., New
York, NY 10036. (212)642-2877. FAX: (212)642-2896. Please contact
either person for information and details on this session.
Roundtable III: A Virtual Swap Meet in New York. Moderators: Loy
Zimmerman, Slide Curator, Art Dept., California State University -
Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90840-3501.
(310)985-4394. FAX: (310) 985-1650. Email: [log in to unmask] AND
Elizabeth J. Antrim, Slide Curator, Art Dept. San Jose State
University, 1 Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192-0089. (408)
924-4351. FAX: (408) 924-4326. Email: [log in to unmask]
Although the sharing of resources - most notably, cataloging
records - has long
been a feature of the bibliographic world, sharing has, for a variety
of reasons, only come recently to the VR field. We advocate sharing
and imagine our Virtual Swap Meet as a not-for-profit experience
focused on the sharing of ideas, methods and information leading to
the new age of image/data projection using new technologies. We, and
the 18 other VR curators in the California State University system,
have benefited immensely the past few years through sharing ideas on
digital imaging. This session would discuss resource sharing,
collaborative production and exchange of digital images, efforts to
create data standards or standardized file formats, the sharing of
vocabularies and authority files, or the sharing of personal
experience through such means as preparing and distributing
instructions to the use of software or offering training sessions to
other VR professionals. Collaborative projects would also be
highlighted.
Roundtable IV: A Core Record for Visual Resources Collections.
Moderator: To be announced.
A moderated discussion about the VRA/Data Standards Committee Core
Record project, this session will provide an opportunity to engage in
a dialogue with members of the committee as well as those who
participated in a test of the record. The Core Record is being
proposed as a standard for the Visual Resources community, and
membership input is crucial to the success of the project. Open to
all.
February 15 - Saturday
Roundtable V: The Digital Transition. Moderator: John Cloud,
Geography Dept., University of California -Santa Barbara, Santa
Barbara, CA 93106. (805) 963-1632.. FAX: (805) 893-7782. Email:
[log in to unmask]
Session would deal with the "real" cost of the digital transition -
which can include social and organizational implications, but also
money; the status and evolution of digital imagery access and query
systems - how an image is described being the most important aspect
of digitization; and what is being left behind in the digital
transition - what images are being left behind and are not making it
into digitization - often the historical and older material become
less accessible.
Roundtable VI: Collection Development: What's the Policy? Moderator:
Martha Mahard, Curator, Visual Collections, Fine Arts Library, Fogg
Art Museum, Harvard University, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA 02138.
(617) 495-3376. FAX: (617) 496-4889. Email: [log in to unmask]
A panel of Collection Development librarians and visual resources
professionals will discuss and debate the need for written policies,
how they evolve, if they are effective, and what happens when money
is short. Types of collections to be represented: art history slide
library, non-art history non-print collection, museum library,
university library and special (government or other) library.
Joint VRA/ARLIS roundtable.
Session VII: Copyright and Fair Use Issues for Academic Slide
Collections: a panel discussion. Moderator: Jeanette C. Mills,
Director of Visual Services, School of Art, University of Washington,
Box 353440, Seattle, WA 98195-3440. (206) 543-0649. FAX: (206)
685-1657. Email: [log in to unmask]
In this session, lawyers and slide librarians/curators will
discuss a variety of copyright and fair use issues that affect
academic slide collections. The moderator will introduce the
panelists, then each panel member will have time to comment on the
issues she/he perceives as being most significant. The balance of
the session will be devoted to questions. In advance of the
conference, the moderator will solicit questions from the VRA
membership and subscribers to VRA-L, and these will be used to start
the discussion. There also will be time for questions from the
audience. The purpose of this session is to provide a forum for the
discussion of copyright and fair use issues that interest many
academic slide librarians/curators and are not generally discussed
openly.
CAA Affiliated Society Session, to be held at the CAA venue.
