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By Phill Purdy - May 2001
The creation of digital image archives can be described as a cycle, from planning to preservation, taking in all points in between: rights management, archival image capture, data management and delivery systems. VADS as a UK Higher and Further Education data service works throughout this cycle in tandem with visual arts digital image collection creators to assist the planning, production, delivery, use and preservation of high quality digital materials.
This article by Phill Purdy illustrates how VADS works with its depositors and outlines some of the issues and methodologies employed by VADS to create its cross-searchable catalogue of archived visual arts digital image collections.
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The Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) is based at The Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College. VADS is a part of the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) [1]. VADS and AHDS are funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) [2] and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [3] to support research, learning and teaching in UK Higher and Further Education, by providing digital archiving and advisory services.
The AHDS was established in 1995 to support digital resources across the arts and humanities. The AHDS consists of five ‘Service Providers’; each with subject and technical specialisms, managed by an ‘Executive Service’ based at Kings College, London. VADS began operating in March 1997 to serve the full gamut of visual arts disciplines including fine art; design; architecture; applied arts; history and theory; media; museum studies and professional practice.
VADS provides an on-line catalogue of its archived collections and advice on the creation, management and use of visual arts digital resources. VADS aims to accession all forms of digital data, from text to multimedia and provides advice through an outreach programme that includes publications, workshops and consultation. VADS services are freely available to UK Higher and Further Education sectors and VADS seeks to work collaboratively within other sectors, both nationally and internationally. VADS accessions collections via a variety of means, from formal relationships with funding bodies, as in the case of AHRB projects, to individual negotiations with data creators.
VADS collections of third party created resources are promoted and preserved for broad and long-term academic and educational use through VADS on-line catalogue. Items within VADS catalogue are individually ‘branded’ to identity and acknowledge the original collection owners and the source of the collection. VADS catalogue represents a growing body of visual arts material, searchable across as well as within individual collections and provides a significant resource for all involved with research, learning and teaching.
Resources currently delivered by VADS include: image databases from the Imperial War Museum, London College of Fashion, National Arts Education Archive and The Design Council Archive; student degree show Web sites, and Computer Aided Learning packages.
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| Figure 1: A montage of items from VADS current and forthcoming image collections |
As of 31 March 2001, VADS catalogue provides access to five disparate image collections totaling over 6,500 digital images. These image collections are due to be shortly joined by another five collections, resulting in a total of over 15,000 images and their full catalogue records. Subsequently, VADS image collections are due to more than double in quantity over the next eighteen months through several projects VADS is currently working alongside.
VADS Catalogue of Image Collections is accessible from the Web site [4]. It offers free-text searching using Boolean and other search operators, within any or across all image database collections.
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| Figure 2: VADS Catalogue page |
Results are returned in thumbnail to 'screen-size' images with accompanying 'brief', 'core' and 'full' catalogue records. At the level of individual image records, items carry collection-stakeholder logos to identify their original source.
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| Figure 3: Example of VADS search results page |
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| Figure 4: Example of VADS core record page |
Also accessible from VADS Catalogue page are ‘Search Help’ pages, which give details of search operators and strategies; 'Collection Information', outlining the content and history of individual collections and an 'Advanced Search' facility, which allows graphical Boolean searching and choices as to how results are returned. The catalogue page also presents links to VADS non-image database collections.
As attested to above, VADS is an archive of third-party created image collections. This means that VADS does not undertake scanning and cataloguing of image collections. However, VADS does have a significant role supporting those engaged with the creation and management of visual arts digital image collections. VADS offers subject specific support to creators and managers of visual arts data, particularly those committed to or envisioning archiving with VADS.
VADS support throughout the digital creation life cycle, from planning to preservation, promotes the use of standards and good practices for data creation, ensuring maximum return on the investments made in data creation. VADS undertakes its image digitisation advisory role in collaboration with other UK Services in this field, such as the Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) [5] and the Higher Education Digitisation Service (HEDS) [6].
VADS works in an advisory capacity with the majority of collections it accessions. For example, the delivering and archiving of the JISC Image Digitisation Initiative (JIDI) visual arts collections [7]. VADS was a member of the JIDI Steering Committee and has worked collaboratively with JIDI depositors throughout the process of accessioning material with VADS.
The JIDI project, started in 1996, was an important research and development project within UK Higher Education, establishing digital image capture standards and procedures [8], along with metadata creation guidelines [9]. The project benefited from major input from TASI and HEDS, providers of advice and digitisation services respectively.
There are 11 visual arts collections resulting from the JIDI project, totaling over 15,000 images in all. As of 31 March 2001, VADS is currently delivering four JIDI collections, numbering between c300 and 3,000 images each, with the remainder scheduled for delivery within the first half of 2001. Further JIDI collections to be delivered by VADS are: Design Council Slide Collection, Manchester Metropolitan University; African and Asian Visual Arts Archive; University of East London; John Johnson Collection of Political and Trades Prints; Central St Martins Museum Collection; Spellman Collection of Music Covers, University of Reading; Fawcett Library Suffragette Banners, London Guildhall University.
The four JIDI collections VADS is currently delivering are Design Council Archive, University of Brighton, London College of Fashion: College Archive and the AE Halliwell and Basic Design Collection, both from the National Arts Education Archive, Bretton Hall College, University of Leeds. These collections vary in content from fine art learning materials within the Basic Design Collection to black and white archival photographs and negatives within Design Council Archive and London College of Fashion: College Archive. Conjoining them, alongside the IWM Concise Art Collection, within robust delivery systems was the task in hand for VADS.
To enable these collections not only to be fully text searchable individually, but also across one-another, VADS had to make some important decisions about its systems. This included both image specifications and suitable data structure and systems to use, as well as managing the administrative tasks involved in creating such an archive.
The administrative tasks include managing the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) involved with image collections. VADS operates a licence agreement that establishes the rights situation and obligations of each party within the archiving relationship - the depositor (collection owner) and archive (VADS). A standard licence [10] was created as a pro forma to be used across the AHDS and allows for non-exclusive depositing of material by collection owners for VADS to deliver and preserve collections for educational purposes. This means that under the standard terms of deposit, the original rights owner maintains all rights they have in the original collection and is free to utilise the material for any other purposes. VADS is licenced solely to provide enhanced delivery and preservation of the collection for academic and educational purposes.
VADS delivery hardware is hosted at Bath University Computing Services (BUCS), a major UK Higher Education computing centre. VADS image catalogue is delivered using Index+ technology developed by Systems Simulation Ltd [11], a British software engineering company specialising in interactive text, image and multimedia information systems, with in-depth experience in the cultural heritage field.
VADS produces surrogate Web delivery images in jpeg format, derived from the archival tiffs housed off-line by VADS. The Web images are either produced in-house by VADS or obtained direct from data creators. The standard size jpeg images VADS delivers are: ‘thumbnail’ max. 90x90pixels; ‘core record’ max. 400x400pixels and ‘large’ reference image max 600x600pixels.
For its data-structure, VADS implements the Visual Resources Association Core Categories, Version 3.0 (VRA Core 3.0) [12] in its on-line delivery systems and thence promotes this standard to the wider community. VRA Core 3.0 is an image-cataloguing standard developed to describe “works of visual culture and the images that document them” [12]. For instance, using VRA Core 3.0, a painting would be documented using field titles such as: record type, measurements, material, creator, style/period, etc. In all, the published VRA Core 3.0 standard has 73 fields providing very rich and thus user-friendly descriptors of visual arts materials and their image-documents.
VRA Core 3.0 was chosen by VADS as the basis for its image collection data-structure, not only because it is one of the foremost standards for works of visual culture, but also because it promotes the use of terminology controls, which aid quality and consistency when creating data. More significantly, however, VADS adopted VRA Core 3.0 because it relates directly to other visual arts and more generic electronic resource description standards, such as the Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA) [13] and Dublin Core [14]. This inherent ‘mapping’ of VRA Core 3.0 to other standards allows for potentially increased integration of digital image records across diverse systems, a vital benefit given VADS goal of building an interoperable on-line catalogue of digital resources. VADS will initially implement interoperability of its image collections database through a gateway for all AHDS collections, using the Dublin Core and Z39.50 protocols, which will allow all AHDS collections to be cross-searched simultaneously, creating a powerful Internet access tool to access Arts and Humanities digital resources. This technology could then be extended to other national and international integrated systems to increase access and usability.
VADS systems will continue to evolve as collections expand in quantity and types, necessitating modifications to delivery and archiving systems. VADS is also undertaking a JISC funded project to investigate tools and provide resources to Promote the use of Image Collections for Learning and Teaching in the Visual Arts, (PICTIVA) [14], the results of which should be available on VADS Web site from March 2002. VADS will also continue to investigate opportunities for collaboration to increase access and use of digital collections for research, learning and teaching.
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Phill Purdy
Manager
Visual Arts Data Service
The Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University
College
Farnham
Surrey, GU9 7DS
United Kingdom
Phill@vads.ahds.ac.uk
<http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/>
Phone: +44 (0)1252 892724
Fax: +44 (0)1252 892725
Phill Purdy has been working with visual resources in the academic and commercial sectors, since 1991. He has been with VADS, since November 1998, following completion of an MA in Computer Applications for the History of Art, Birkbeck College, London.
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For citation purposes:
Purdy, P. "Digital Image Archiving and Advice: in Tandem with the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS)", Cultivate Interactive, issue
4, 7 May 2001
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue4/vads/>
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