Case study in Collaboration: Developing the Online Scholarly Catalogue Project

Case study in Collaboration:Developing the Online Scholarly

Catalogue Project

Liz Neely, Art Institute of Chicago@lili_czarina

May 2ndAAM2012, Minneapolis

“The five-year initiative hopes to demonstrate that when art museums collaborate on innovative models for online scholarly catalogues, they will dramatically increase access to their collections, make available new, interdisciplinary research, and potentially revolutionize how object–based research is performed and utilized.” -Getty Web site (consulted 5/1/2012)

Initiated by the Getty Foundation

The Art Institute of Chicago

Monet and Renoir paintings and drawings

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Premodern Japanese illustrated books

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Southeast Asian sculpture

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Dutch Paintings of the 17th Century

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Robert Rauschenberg works

Seattle Art Museum

Tate Britain Walker Art Center J. Paul Getty Museum (participant, not a grantee)

Paintings acquired in the last 10 years

Camden Town Group paintings & drawings

Chinese paintings and calligraphy

Recent acquisitions of contemporary art

OSCI PARTICIPANTSBrought together by the Getty











Seattle Art Museum






DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONS/PROJECTS[encyclopedic]











Seattle Art Museum






DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONS/PROJECTS[modern/contemporary]











Seattle Art Museum






DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONS/PROJECTS[non-western art project]











Seattle Art Museum






DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONS/PROJECTS[paintings and drawings]











Seattle Art Museum






OSCI PARTICIPANTS

Defining and Tackling the Issue

Each institution approached their own projects. The Getty physically brought representatives back together at various stages to share problems, results and brainstorm solutions.

KEY: Different Models of Collaboration

There are a lot of different ways to collaborate—it’s not always about people working together on the same project. In this case it’s people working together to think through common issues on similar

projects.

KEY: Different Models of Collaboration

• Built a community around the project• Participating museums could discuss issues

not immediately facing their project, but which they may face in future projects

• Test ones own assumptions in the face of different solutions

Paintings and Drawings by the Impressionist Circle in the Collection of the

Art Institute of Chicago

AIC TEAMCuratorial Conservation Publications

Technology

ImagingLegal

Ryerson and Burnham Libraries

The Art Institute OSCI Project

• Highly collaborative cross-departmental, including a senior-level professional staff internally

• Needed to work with a development team open to working with this team to build out our evolving ‘vision’

• Built high level requirements, but needed help in realization

Developing the Catalogue

Art Institute engaged the IMA Lab to develop an innovative open-source

interface for the OSCI catalogue.

KEY: Everyone brings something to the table

• Senior curatorial, conservation, publications and technology staff with their extraordinary experience and expertise in scholarly research and collection information

• Dedication and commitment to producing and uncompromising beautiful and useful catalogue platform

KEY: Everyone brings something to the table

• Visionary technology staff understanding of collections publishing details and able to translate the AIC requirements and aspirations into a technical reality

• Commitment to building tools that enhance the museum community

Outcomes

Highly collaborative, iterative, successful

Outcomes

• The Art Institute catalogue vision comes to life in an online scholarly publishing platform.– Software launched as open source.

• The IMA receives a grant from the Getty Foundation to further extend for other OSCI museums.– OSCI Toolkit: www.oscitoolkit.org

• The museum community, through the Getty Project, has a more sophisticated knowledge and ongoing dialogue about digital scholarly publishing.

KEY: Defined Outcomes for Success

It’s only a success if you got out of it what you needed and what you expected… and hopefully more!

Other benefits

• Professional development extended beyond your own institution

• Leads to more collaborations – AIC working with the IMA Lab on a custom TAP/TourML tool

• Collective expertise to effectively advance our knowledge base

• Fun!

The “I” word..

Innovation though Collaboration

Thank you!

Liz NeelyTwitter: @lili_czarinaDirector of Digital Information and AccessArt Institute of Chicago

Education

Case study in Collaboration: Developing the Online Scholarly Catalogue Project