Message-Id: <mailto:199507172221.RAA03964@library.wustl.edu> Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995 16:18:25 -0600 From: Kevin Donovan <mailto:kdonovan@SWCP.COM> Subject: R. MacKimmie's ?'s about imaging projects To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB
I would like to offer short comments on Robert's and Stuart's recent messages about imaging projects. I know Robert started by talking about digital image cataloguing, but much of his message, and the follow-up by Stuart, dealt with "serious" imaging projects and how they will be accomplished.First, may I shamelessly offer the Frank Lloyd Wright publication as an example of a serious project (for visual images rather than text-based documents); one that created a very high resolution digital asset (72MB files) for the FLW Archive and a derivative electronic publication, "Frank Lloyd Wright: Presentation and Conceptual Drawings," that is a major resource for scholars. The second volume is underway and a third is planned. In the end, over 3/4 of the FLW Archive (some 15-16,000 images) will be available with image quality and resolutions (1024x768 24-bit) far in excess of multimedia CDs or what's reasonable via the Internet. With cataloguing, standardized to the AAT, that meets academic requirements for a catalogue raisonne, I should add.
Secondly, may I suggest that publication may be a very attractive way to create a preservation quality digital image collection for an institution. And by publication I don't mean the Internet, which currently can't deliver high quality images in an environment amenable to the way people use visual collections (again, I'm only referring to what I know best: visual material, not text documents). If the collections we decide to digitize have value, then why should they be given away for free? Institutions are diverting a great deal of internal resources for even small digitizing projects. Is there not any value being created at this expense? I think the work being done by Stuart, Robert, and others is worth something. Digitizing and cataloguing is not the same as creating an OPAC. OPACs we give away as a finding aid. What Stuart, Robert et. al. are doing is creating content. Content costs much more money to produce and should be paid for, as we do for books. Much of the digitizing work being done now is grant funded. If the granting agencies go away, will we have a model other than publishing to make this valuable visual and textual information available? If you like the "free-is-the-best-price" model, don't hold your breath for this material to be published electronically; there will be no way to finance that model.
My unsolicited 2 cents worth.
Best wishes,
Kevin
---------------------------------------- Kevin Donovan Director of Special Projects Luna Imaging, Inc. 1315 Innes Place Venice, CA 90291 ph: 310.452.8370 fx: 310.452.8389 mailto:donovan@luna-img.com or kdonovan@swcp.com