Message-Id: <mailto:199408301307.IAA05160@library.wustl.edu> Date: Tue, 30 Aug 1994 09:00:21 EST From: Paul Gherman <mailto:ghermanp@KENYON.EDU> Subject: Image Vision II To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB <mailto:IMAGELIB@ARIZVM1.BITNET>
DO WE NEED A META ORGANIZATION FOR IMAGES?After reading imagelib for several months, it seems to me that there are many voices from many fields represented here. Although the majority of posts are concerning technical issues, there are many more concerns at a higher level which must be addressed, if we are to realize the true potential of digital images on the net. Technology, standards, copyright, indexing, and what I will call the meta-organization of the virtual image library.
It is not too soon to begin thinking about how an individual might retrieve an image from the millions and millions of images, ( I'm primarily talking about non-textural images) which we have begun scanning or creating. Imagelib has begun the inventory of image projects which are numerous, but which only will represent a small fraction of image databases which will exist in the future. OCLC has offered the library world a means of locating a bibliographic citation within the 18,000 participating libraries by listing 500 million locations for the 30 million records in their database. David Bearman mentioned to me that he thinks there could be as many as 600 million images currently in our collections which have not been digitized. How will we ever locate this many images across the many institutions which hold them.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the institutions holding images are not all libraries, and therefore they all do not subscribe to the same cataloging standards, technical standards, etc. They are not all members of a broad professional organization which can draw them together for discussion. Indeed, Imagelib may be one of the few places where there is a forum for this type of discussion to take place. It seems to me that until we can find a productive forum to draw together this diverse group of image activists, we will not realize the meta image structure which is needed.
Imagelib has begun the important work of listing image collections. It seems to me we also need to track other image activities which are experimenting with various areas of the problem. For instance there is a small group of university and college libraries working with museums to test the licensing issues of sharing images for educational purposes through an organization called MUSE.
I hope some of these thoughts can stimulate a good thread or two on Imagelib.
Paul M. Gherman Director of Libraries Olin and Chalmers Library Kenyon College Gamibier, OH 43022 614-427-5186 voice 614-427-2272 fax mailto:ghermanp@kenyon.edu