Message-Id: <mailto:199407151332.IAA10023@library.wustl.edu> Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 09:24:53 EST From: Paul Gherman <mailto:ghermanp@KENYON.EDU> Subject: Image Vision To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB <mailto:IMAGELIB@ARIZVM1.BITNET>
This is a new list, and so far I have seen a great many requests for the list of projects and a few questions about technical issues. I hope we might shift the conversation of some broad strategic planning issues dealing with images on the net. First we need to distinguish between textural images and those that are not. Storing and accessing textual images seems to fall into much the same realm that libraries have been dealing with for a long time. We know how to describe these images and therefore can retrieve them with some precision. We have an accepted convention or set of standards on how to describe these images, ie. MARC format and AACR2 cataloging rules.Images which are not text, pose a very different problem. David Bearman mentioned to me in a meeting, that he guesses there are at least 600 million images now stored in our museums, libraries, and archives. If we compare this to say OCLC's database of 30 million records, the figure becomes staggering. The use and retrieval of these images is far different than the typical use of text. I heard the librarian of the National Geographic's collection describe the typical request for one of their images. " I want something mostly blue with orange in the lower right hand corner." or " I want an image with shows the mental state of depression." These are not the typical request of a user of text. If we are to realize the day when there might be the equivalent union non-textual image database comparable to OCLC's bibliographic database, then we need to do some serious thinking about how we describe non-textural images. I understand that the museum or art community has some well thought out descriptors for slide images of art works. Although I aslo understand that there are three different systems in use. This may be a good beginning, but what about photographic collections, collections of medical images, geologic images, those of astronomy, etc. If we are to see the day when we can freely access non-textual images across the net, we need to begin the discussion before we need to redo many significant cataloging efforts.
Over the years at Kenyon, we have cataloged 50,000 of our slides and placed them into a database which we now find is useless as an end user retrieval system. Before we begin again, we need to give thought to the eventual goal, and plan to integrate our efforts into some national plan. Most our users of image colletions browse through our physical collections until they find what they want. In an electonic world, will thumbnail images work in the same way. Digital files are not arranged like our physical files.
I sense that we have folks on this listserv from different communites. It would be good to hear the reactions to some of these issues.
Any reactions?
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
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