----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Forwarded from the NINCH list. Judy -------------Forwarded Message----------------- From: David Green, INTERNET:[log in to unmask] To: Multiple recipients of list, INTERNET:[log in to unmask] Date: 2/8/99 10:47 AM RE: Digital Image Distribution Study released ============================================================================== NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT February 8, 1999 DIGITAL IMAGE DISTRIBUTION STUDY NOW AVAILABLE Berkeley Mellon Study of MESL Project * * * * Press Release: Report: "The Cost of Digital Image Distribution: The Social and Economic Implications of the Production, Distribution, and Usage of Image Data" Last year, the Getty Trust published its report on one of the most influential and seminal digital projects of recent years, the Museum Educational Site Licensing project. Initially created to discover and define acceptable terms and conditions for licensing the distribution of digital museum images in the educational community, it grew to encompass, and bring its participants to grapple with, in the words of Eleanor Fink (director of the sponsoring Getty Information Institute) "issues from content selection, image capture, and standards for recording and transmitting data to systems interface design, faculty and student training in new technology, software tool development, use and impact studies, economic analyses and intellectual property questions." The Getty issued its report in two volumes last year: ""Delivering Digital Images: Cultural Heritage Resources for Education," ($24.95; from and "Images Online: Perspectives from the Museum Educational Site Licensing Project." ($12.50; from . Now, a Mellon Foundation-financed economic study of the MESL project, conducted by the University of California at Berkeley has just been released. "The Cost of Digital Image Distribution: The Social and Economic Implications of the Production, Distribution, and Usage of Image Data" examines MESL's cost centers in the distribution of a digital library of images and metadata. The findings, according to the release,"should be of interest to anyone contemplating image digitization or distribution, particularly to a scholarly audience. It should be of particular interest to those involved in funding and/or planning activities involving either analog or digital image distribution." David Green ============ >Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 23:27:11 -0800 (PST) >From: Howard Besser <[log in to unmask]> >To: David Green <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: digital image distribution Study released SPECIAL REPORT ON DIGITAL IMAGE DISTRIBUTION STUDY IS NOW AVAILABLE This press release looks better viewed on a web browser at http://sunsite.Berkeley.EDU/Imaging/Databases/1998mellon/99press-release.html A special report examining the costs of distributing digital images to the university community has just been released. "The Cost of Digital Image Distribution: The Social and Economic Implications of the Production, Distribution, and Usage of Image Data" is the result of a 22-month UC Berkeley study of the Museum Educational Site Licensing Project (MESL), supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The MESL Project, sponsored by the Getty Information Institute, was the first attempt to create a collection of images and descriptive information from a variety of museums and deliver it digitally to university users of campus networks. The two-year experimental collaboration among seven museums and seven universities succeeded in distributing approximately 10,000 images for classroom use and individual research, primarily in the areas of cultural studies, art history, history, and photography. The Cost of Digital Image Distribution identifies, defines, and explores MESL's primary cost centers in the digital network distribution of images and accompanying text. It examines the processes and costs of analog slide libraries, and compares the analog and digital distribution systems. It also considers the intangible factors that can lead to the success or failure of digital distribution schemes, such as learning curve, ease or difficulty of maintenance, and faculty attitudes towards teaching with digital images. The findings presented in this report should be of interest to anyone contemplating image digitization or distribution, particularly to a scholarly audience. It should be of particular interest to those involved in funding and/or planning activities involving either analog or digital image distribution. Major findings include: -It will be a long time before digital image repositories will be able to deliver the critical mass of images needed for instruction and research. Analog slide libraries and digital image repositories will necessarily coexist for many years. -The higher education community is enthusiastic about providing access to digital images and information from cultural heritage repositories. However, many impediments to widespread adoption must be dealt with--ranging from lack of comprehensive content and the absence of necessary tools to facilitate use, to inadequate recognition and support for faculty who adopt new technology in their teaching. -The anticipated shift from analog slide libraries to licensed digital images represents a shift from ownership to access through ongoing subscription. This shift is analogous to the changes that have taken place in university library collections. University administrators are concerned about controlling content costs and faculty are concerned about ongoing access to the images they use and need. Those university positions are at odds with those of museum image distribution consortia, who seek a consistent revenue stream and are reluctant to assure ongoing access without ongoing payment. For such image distribution schemes to work, both museums and universities have to see their common goals as outweighing their individual concerns. "The Cost of Digital Image Distribution: The Social and Economic Implications of the Production, Distribution, and Usage of Image Data" Howard Besser, Principal Investigator; Robert Yamashita, Project Manager A report to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation--A Study of the Economics of Network Access to Visual Information: The Museum Educational Site Licensing Project, Published by the School of Information Management and Systems, U.C. Berkeley, 1998 Available online at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Imaging/Databases/1998mellon in both html and PDF format Paper copies of this report may also be ordered c/o Howard Besser, School of Information Management & Systems, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, 94720-4600 ._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. Howard Besser Associate Professor UCLA Department of Information Studies address thru August 1999: School of Information Management & Systems 102 South Hall University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-4600 tel: (510)643-7365 office: (510)642-1464 fax: (510)642-5814 [log in to unmask] http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~howard/ =============================================================== David L. Green Executive Director NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR A NETWORKED CULTURAL HERITAGE 21 Dupont Circle, NW Washington DC 20036 [log in to unmask] 202/296-5346 202/872-0886 fax ============================================================== Subscribe to the NINCH-ANNOUNCE public listserv for news on networking cultural heritage. Send message "Subscribe NINCH-Announce Your Name" to <[log in to unmask]>. ==============================================================