Recent Developments in Cultural Heritage Image Databases: Directions for User-Centered Design

Library Trends, Fall, 1999 by Christie Stephenson

The system design is based on the fundamental assumption that image or object databases are created to meet the management needs of the particular repositories and should remain independent from the provision of public access. Standardization of public access through the DLPS provides consistent service to meet instructional and research needs. Image Services provides a standard interface for searching all collections as well as a search form customized to each collection (see Figure 5). They have articulated a set of incremental improvements to the system, including the ability to create "personal collections" (http://images.umdl.umich. edu/info/arch/arch_summ.html).

[Figure 5 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Harvard University

Harvard University has over 8 million objects and images in its libraries, archives, and museums. Its diverse institutional environment is a challenging testbed for providing integrated access to cultural resources collections. Over the past two years, representatives from museums, libraries, and archives at Harvard and Radcliffe, working together with the Library Office of Information Systems, have been engaged in a process to build a shared union catalog of visual resources. The goal of the union catalog project is to create a common database where users can discover Harvard's wealth of visual resources and be directed to the holding repository for more detailed information or access to materials.

To date, this project, known as Visual Image Access (VIA), has devoted much of its effort to the process of agreeing on a common data structure for its union catalog as well as reaching consensus on the scope and functionality of the catalog. In the first phase of the project, currently underway, object and collection records from six diverse collections will be merged into a single database; digital images may be associated with the records but are not required. At the outset, VIA will include only cultural heritage materials based on the existence of similar metadata structures and distinct functionality required for use. Like the Michigan Image Server Program, VIA acknowledges the separate and primary functions of each repository's collection management or access system; it does not intend to dictate local practice but to federate local records. And as at Michigan, the intent is to provide access not only to locally held images or objects but to licensed image content as well. Implementation of the VIA system was scheduled to begin in early 1999 (http://sylvia.harvard.edu/ ~robin/viascope.htm).

Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO)

The Art Museum Image Consortium, founded in 1997, is in many respects the successor to the MESL Project. In its project description, AMICO is characterized as "a not-for-profit consortium dedicated to creating a digital library" documenting the collections of its members and making that library available for educational use. It currently includes over 20,000 images and object records from over twenty contributing institutions and anticipates a growth rate of about 50,000 objects a year (http://www.amn.org/AMICO/). At present, those resources are being distributed to twenty universities participating in a year-long testbed project. Unlike MESL, where all the data were distributed to each of the participating universities, AMICO is currently providing centralized distribution to the testbed participants through the Research Libraries Group. As in MESL, the AMICO data set uses existing collections management information extracted from the contributors' systems and mapped to a common data dictionary. The data set and images are made available to AMICO testbed users through a modified version of RLG's Eureka interface (see Figure 6) (http://www.rlg.org/amicolib.html).