4/30/98 Besser-PARC-1 1 Delivery, Deployment, and Use of Digital Images: Lessons from a major University/Museum Consortial Project Howard Besser Associate

4/30/98Besser-PARC-11

Delivery, Deployment, and Use of Digital Images: Lessons from a major University/Museum Consortial Project

Howard Besser

Associate Professor

UCLA School of Educ & Info Studies

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/mellon


Delivery, Deployment, and Use of Digital Images-

• The Museum Educational Site Licensing Project (MESL)

• The UCB Mellon Grant• Comparing MESL User Interfaces

• Comparing MESL Search Discrepancies

• Assessing University & Museum Costs

• Assessing Costs of Slide Libraries

• Examining Faculty & Student Use & Usefullness


Distribution of Digital Images and Metadata on 7 University Campuses:

the Museum Educational Site Licensing Project-

• MESL Goals & Structures• Example of a MESL University Site• MESL Timeline and Constraints• Sample MESL implementations


Museum Educational Site Licensing Project

• Discover what it takes for museums to prepare and deliver images & text – procedures, costs, prior knowledge, standards

• Identify factors needed to increase use of museum images by the educational community

• Create a testbed which will help identify, review, & evaluate other factors important to the participants – security, unauthorized use, text identification accompanying each image


MESL Goals and Objectives• Define the terms and conditions for the educational use of digitized

museum images and information distributed over campus networks.

• Develop, test and evaluate procedures, mechanisms, and standards for the collection and dissemination of digital images and information.

• Propose the framework of a broadly-based system for the ongoing distribution and educational use of museum images and information.

• Document and communicate experience and discoveries of the project.

• Begin to examine the impact of broad distribution of digital images on both museums and universities


Sample MESL Query


Sample MESL Query


Samples from a MESL Site


Samples from a MESL Site


MESL Origins/History

• Lack of standards in Museum community

• Museums approached by growing number of digital image distributors

• Unknown issues around both “terms & conditions” and delivery

• Serving new audiences


MESL Participants (Museums/Repositories)

• Fowler Museum of Cultural History

• International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House

• Harvard University Art Museums

• Library of Congress

• Houston Museum of Fine Arts

• National Gallery of Art

• National Museum of American Art


MESL Participants (Universities)

• American University

• Columbia University

• Cornell University

• University of Illinois

• University of Maryland

• University of Michigan

• University of Virginia


Timeline

• 9/94--Call for participation

• 11/94--Application deadline

• 12/94--Selection of participants announced

• 2/95--First participants meeting

• Summer/95--First distribution

• Fall/95--Courses taught w/MESL material

• Summer/96--Second distribution

• Summer/96--Mellon/MESL award announced

• 7/97--Project officially ends

• 1997/98--Universities to continue using MESL material w/o further distribution (pending contractual agreement)

• 11/97--Mellon datagathering ends

• 2/98--Final Mellon report due


Project Constraints

• Extremely short lead-time before first distribution

• Need to rely primarily upon repurposing of existing data

• Existing Museum information is compiled for internal purposes

• Lack of standards for either text or image


Metadata Issues (Text)

• Poor history of Museum standards

• Needs standards for:– fields– controlled vocabulary– data exchange


Authority control over artist name

• Goya y Lucinetes, Francisco de (Houston)

• Goya y Lucientes, Francisco Jose de (Harvard)

• Goya, Francisco de (NGA)


Fields in MESL Data Dictionary (1.1)

• 1. data agreement number

• 2. holding institution

• 3. accession number

• 4. accession method

• 5. credit line

• 6. label

• 7. object type/ objectclass/ object name

• 8. object title/caption

• 9. creator/maker - name

• 10. creator/maker - culture/nationality

• 11. creator/maker - role

• 12. creation place

• 13. creation begin date

• 14. creation end date

• 15. creation technique/method/process

• 16. material/medium

• 17. support

• 18. dimension/extent-quantity-unit

• 19. parts/pieces

• 20. marks/inscriptions

• 21. edition/state

• 22. associated events, people, organizations, places

• 23. concepts/subject

• 24. concepts/style-period

• 25. concepts/function

• 26. description

• 27. accompanying image - file name

• 28. accompanying image - caption

• 29. accompanying image - capture data

• 30. accompanying document - file name

• 31. accompanying document - type

• 32. version identification


• Museum Collectn Mgmt System

• 1. object title/caption • 2. accession method • 3. accession number • 4. label • 5. credit line • 6. creation end date • 7. object type/ objectclass/ object name • 8. holding institution • 9. ...• 10. ...• ...• ...• 99. creation begin date • 100. data agreement number • 101. creation• ...

• MESL Data Dictionary




• 4. ccession method

• 5. credit line

• 6. label












Standards Issues for Images

• Problems of lack of common vocabulary and standards.

• What size images to transmit?

• What format?


MESL Images: CharacteristicsMuseum File Format Largest File Smallest File

NMAA TIFF 1056x9302.8MB

286x892800K

LOC JPEG/JFIF 540x42039K compressed5:1 compression

552x42032K compressed7:1 compression

NGA(supplied 3 sizes ofderivative images)

JPEG/JFIF 729x600305K76% compression

333x76842K17:1 compression

Houston JPEG/JFIF 1284x18762.3MB compressedno compression


Fowler JPEG/JFIF,GIF

1472x9991.45MBno compression


Harvard JPEG/JFIF 1024x672818K compressed59% compression


Eastman House PhotoCD 16 Base3072x2048

Base/16192x128


MESL Images: Capture MethodsMuseum Capture Methods

Eastman House none recorded (presumed to be digitized from intermediate 35mmfilm via PCD process)

Fowler • 35 mm slide scanned onto Kodak PhotoCD (resolution Base*4)• Scanned from catalogue using HP IIcx flatbed scanner• Scanned from drawing using HP IIcx flatbed scanner• Digital photograph using Kodak DCS420 digital camera

Harvard • Digitized with PhotoCD from 35mm slides. Extracted at Base*4and reduced to fit within 1024x768 then cropped, minimal colorcorrection• Scanned using a Pixelcraft 4000 at 300 dpi from an 8x10transparency. Reduced to fit within 1024x768, minimal colorcorrection• Scanned using a Sharp JX-600 at 300 dpi from an 8x10transparency. Reduced to fit within 1024x768, minimal colorcorrection

Houston from 35mm slides scanned onto Kodak writable CD

Library of Congress Scanned from film intermediate, uncorrected

National Gallery 24 bit color: corrected

NMAA PCD->UR->TIF


Issues Raised by MESL Deployment

• Choice of Distribution Methods

• Delivery front-end & search interface

• Image distribution/deployment

• Formats for structuring text

• Security

• Delivery & deployment of clean & consistent data


Teaching issues

• Infrastructure

• New teaching approaches

• Creating New Image Sets (Views)

• Teaching tools


Creating New Image Sets (Views)


Creating New Image Sets (Views)


Teaching Tools


Teaching Tools<head>



<title>UVA MESL--Project Example (Comparison)</title>

<center>



<img src="../graphics/mesl.gif" height=51 width=540>

<p>

</head>

<body>



<h1>Comparison</h1>

<h4> <i> Course: </i> Art 100<br>

<i> Instructor: </i> Professor Smith<Br>

<i>Date: </i> January 20, 1997</h4>

</center>

<hr>

<p>



<b>ASSIGNMENT: </b> Compare and contrast the two artists' representations


Partnering

• Feedback mechanisms

• Agreement on proper deployment

• Site License contracts

• Potential long-term cooperative ventures

• Security


Security Needs

• Authentication

• Encryption

• Watermarking

• Encapsulation


Examples from the MESL implementations-

• User Interface

• Browsing

• Query options

• Retrieval

• Layout and display


Comparing MESL queries Most implementations:

• Several layers of explanatory info before query formation

• HTML forms with menu choices

• Forms for both simple and complex searches

• Differed in choice of indexed fields


The Querying Study -- Who

• 8 students given access over 1-month period

• none had extensive art historical background (reseembling naive users)


The Querying Study -- Assignment

• compare user interface and display options from site to site– navigation, chunking, ordering

– button placement

– search options and layout of search results

• compare size and quality of thumbnail and larger images

• perform 3 identical sarches at each site and compare results


Query for “surreal” University Results Notes

American 4 Two are photos of people with “Surreal”mentioned in the description.

Columbia 2 Same as others

Cornell 2 Same as others

Illinois 2 Same as others

Maryland 2 Case sensitive, yielded 0 results whencapitalized.

Michigan 2 Same as others

Virginia Varied Subject search: 2 (same as others),Full text: 4 (same as American)


Query for “haystack” University Results Notes

American 2 Searched on title (0 results for subject).

Columbia 1 Haystack in background (not main subject ofwork)

Cornell 5 Searched on full text

Illinois 2 Same as American

Maryland 3 One result different from any of the others.

Michigan 6 Searches on both subject field and “Quicksearch” yielded same results.

Virginia Varied Subject search: 1Title search: 4Full text search: 5


Query for “oil portraits of children”

University Results Notes

American 0 Compound search, tried multiple fields

Columbia 0

Cornell 82 Medium=oil, Subject=child

Illinois 6 Searched “child oil”

Maryland 0 Searched on Keyword

Michigan 31 Subject=child, medium=oil, majority of hitsare relevant

Virginia 82 Subject=child, medium=oil


“Madonna” Query

• columbia (99)

• michigan (66)

• virginia (66)

• cornell (65)

• illinois (65)

• maryland (0)


“Africa” Query

• illinois (273)

• virginia (249)

• cornell (195)

• michigan (104)

• columbia (99)

• maryland (0)


Other Interesting Queries

• title=“birth”

• “black and white”

• French still life

• Madonna and Child


Search Discrepancy -- What Happened?

• different mapping btwn original data fields and perceived user needs

• different ways in which the various search engines work


Fields indexed from MESL Data Dictionary (1)





• 5. credit line

• 6. label











• 17. support









• 26. description













• 5. credit line

• 6. label











• 17. support









• 26. description













• 5. credit line

• 6. label











• 17. support









• 26. description

Documents

4/30/98 Besser-PARC-1 1 Delivery, Deployment, and Use of Digital Images: Lessons from a major University/Museum Consortial Project Howard Besser Associate