library of primitive art

Museum object-based reference tool

Above: An example of a rollover for a single object in an installation photograph. Read below to see what I mean.

Not that anyone would suspect it, but the prolonged silence at this space hasn't been for lack of something to say. Okay, maybe a lack of something to say, but not a lack of activity. Much of my activity has been concentrated on local project planning -- offsite storage, WiFi, and a few stray efforts at improving reference tools.

One of the latter projects was an idea I came up with to use flickr! to assist in object-based reference questions. One of the most frequent questions asked at MPOW is: "Can you help me to find out more about an object in your galleries?" There are nearly 1,200 objects on display in our galleries. Keeping track of them in your head is impossible. In the best of all worlds our patrons would arrive with most of the information we needed to identify the object. Sadly and predictably, this is seldom the case. Absent that there has never been a practical way for us to match these often vague object references (“It’s in the case on the right as you come in, about halfway down, on a stand”) with the specific citation in the library's reference resources. Right now our only recourse is to send them back down to the galleries to copy down the pertinent information – an option I’ve never particularly liked: I worry that they’ll simply never come back again.

What if we had a way to share installation photos with our patrons to identify object they want to know about? And what if the photo had rudimentary information about the objects in the photo, enough to launch a fuller research effort?

While walking through the galleries one afternoon it struck me that I could tailor some of the existing features of flickr! to suit my needs. By using the ‘Add Note’ feature over an installation photo, I could create rollovers for each element in an installation photo, and presto!

I proposed a pilot project to the head of my department, who suggested that I start with objects I knew cropped up often with our walk-in patrons. She also informed me that our department’s segment of the museum-wide collection management database (TMS) already includes many installation shots, stored on the department’s shared drive, that are associated with specific objects.

For my initial effort I picked a wall of Benin brass plaques. I located the relevant installation photo in TMS, downloaded it to my PC and uploaded it to flickr! I created four sample rollover notes with only each object’s unique accession number and the object title. I created a mock flickr! set for it and future photos from the specific gallery in which it resides.

I tagged the photo with some boilerplate terms common to all the objects in the installation photo. I have my colleague Dan to thank for suggesting that I could tag the accession numbers as well as put them in the notes. As I subsequently discovered, tagging in flickr! is an imprecise art. Unlike our collection management system, there's no truncation, for one thing, making a search across accession numbers impossible.

I intend to use the 'Comments' section as a feedback mechanism to solicit suggestions and answer questions from the (for now) closed community with access to the project in vitro.

As is so often the case with projects employing museum photography, I’m waiting for the powers that be to determine if this use of the images complies with museum policies. I don’t know which of several real or imagined aspects of their use that might be giving our administration pause. Fortunately flickr!’s image options allow us to limit access as narrowly as library staff only if called upon. Naturally I’d prefer the resource was available to a much larger audience.

The project is still in development at this writing, pending approval from the administration and a lot more tinkering with the specific features of the tool. I had considered keeping this quick-and-easy DIY application of flickr! to myself until I could showcase a more finished project. But I'd rather put this out there now and see if it might have an application with other museum collections.

Le Musee du quai Branly up close

Cliquez pour agrandir -- Click to enlarge
From the photoblog Over the Rainbow

Digital Asset Management at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Even though RLG does a fine job of publicizing its own efforts, it never hurts to highlight important articles -- particularly when they come out of your own 'shop'. The most recent issue of their RLG DigiNews (Dec. 2006) features Why Digital Asset Management? A Case Study, by Susan Chen and Michael Jenkins, both of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The article is a comprehensive overview of the decision making that surrounded the establishment of a museum-wide Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, now christened Met Images, and the concomitant reorganization of museum resources required to implement and sustain such a system. Of particular interest for an insider is learning what steps were necessary to get institutional buy-in from all the parties affected -- senior management, curatorial and research staff, and the image support staff.

One intriguing assertion appears in a box-out two-thirds of the way down the article, reproduced here on the left, in a section headed Cataloguing. (Evidently the image community clings fast to that interstitial 'u'.) When I first read it I thought the suggestion was that cataloging works of art was significantly different from cataloging 'sneakers or pickup trucks'. On its face this seems eminently arguable. Some institutions have wasted much time and energy in developing elaborate and idiosyncratic DIY systems that try to mimic pre-existing cataloging paradigms (with all their inherent flaws) rather than taking advantage of systems that employ industry-standard input and output.

But in the context of this section of the article, the statement is only meant as a caution: The complexity of cataloging works of art may not be sufficiently recognized by DAM vendors in the design of their products. The authors seem optimistic that "tools will be developed that are more appropriate to the needs of museums, libraries, and archives." From my perspective I hope that the tools are both appropriate to the museum's needs and practically implementable.

Correcting an omission

I've been back for a week now, after a delightful hiatus in the Southern Hemisphere, only to discover that the library world has spun on and forward without me. A little hard to regain the grip I had on the fast pace of change in our community. And this knowing that another absence is looming next month.

So a perfect time to look backward, I guess, on someone I've had reason to think about a lot this year: John Cotton Dana. My appreciation of Dana was rekindled by my distinguished colleagues Bill Dane (distinguished in every sense of the word) of Newark Public Library, and William Peniston of the Newark Museum. This year Bill co-curated a wonderful and wondrous exhibition at Newark PL celebrating Dana on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth. It was Bill's 'next-door neighbor', William, who posted an email announcement of the symposium entitled "Civic Life in Newark: The Legacy of John Cotton Dana," held July 13, 2006 at Newark PL.

Touring the exhbition and listening to the symposium talks, I was struck by Dana's relentless pursuit of innovation, indifference to the status quo, unapologetic pride in his profession, and tireless advocacy for his patrons.  A subsequent read of Dana's Library Primer (3d ed., 1903) revealed just how prescient and timeless his ideas are. For all his mental animation, he may not have been easy to work for (though legend has it he was doted on by his mostly female employees), but the significance of his accomplishments is indisputable.

As delightful as the Librarian Trading Card group on flickr! is, there's a notable lack of retrospection in the collection. My memories of trading cards turned on notions of comparable value from one to another. Was a Willie Mays more valuable than a Mickey Mantle? (To me, perhaps, but those Yankees always seem to bring the highest dollar.) And a Honus Wagner more than all of them? Its too early to assess the worth of my contemporaries, but these library giants of the past: Now they're worth something!

Cockroach Hall of Fame Museum and its ilk

• 32 Weirdly Specific Museums (from SenseList)

I couldn't figure out which of my blogs to put this reblog in, but in the end this one won out. I guess there's something to be said about being in an encyclopedic museum ("5000 Years of Art" [emphasis added]) and not one dedicated to plumbing fixtures. There are some interesting links to follow here as well.

Credit for reblogging it to my attention goes to the quirky Museum Madness blog.

WILT (collective wisdom)

What I learned today (or more accurately, this week) continues the dizzying ascent up my personal learning curve on all things two-point-Oh:

It's all well and good to learn by doing it by yourself, but it's quite another thing to learn by doing it with others.

Following an unusually productive meeting of librarians at my shop, those attending all agreed to heed the siren song of Library 2.0 and dive into it head first. In the first day, nay, the first few hours, we had created a blog site (in-house, and therefore password protected), a del.icio.us account, a Bloglines account, and a flickr! site. It's taking a little time for everyone to get comfortable with these new tools, let alone take advantage of them, and making them a regular stop on ones daily rounds may still be a little ways off. One of my colleagues had the foresight to showcase these new developments in his own blog. [Bravo! and why didn't I think of that? ;) ]

What has been a learning experience is discovering how these tools are used collectively. Working alone with your own 'babies', you are free to tinker around, make mistakes, figure out how to correct them, all without a great concern that anybody's taking much notice. (I am coming to understand with this and other blogs that there is always a lurking and hidden community that will happen upon what you've done; they may just not have much interest in acknowledging it.) While I was busy patting myself on the back for what I already knew, I was nevertheless tossed immediately into a different blog provider than my own ... where I proceeding to start all over, comparing notes one with the other, and even making some minor gaffes. But having already worked with one (for what, three weeks?) meant that I was at least aware of what I thought I could do, whether or not they are actually possible. (Unlike here, I can't change font size or color, not paste in images that aren't hosted on the Internet.)

More important, perhaps, is that I now could watch others struggling with the same issues, and finding their own solutions. Imagine that! And what's more, they had some pretty creative ideas about how to address them.

It's too early to see the full effects of this new libraries-wide cooperation. And maybe I'll just have to settle sometimes with some of the choices made collectively. ("Wouldn't it look better in purple?") But I'm definitely going to enjoy the stimulation and inspiration (and even the exasperation) that comes from this new learning paradigm.

Visiting probies

Remember these faces. They may be coming to a human resources office near you soon.

I wanted to take the opportunity to showcase both my library and the Pratt SILS program's art and museum focus. I realize the usual term of reference is visiting fireman, but as these are library school students it seemed somehow appropriate. Besides, my term is gender neutral.

Apart from the guy in the electric tie, I can't provide names for any of these worthy visitors to my library yet. But I expect to see a lot of them in the coming week and a half. They are in Pratt's Museum & Library Research two-week intensive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a course founded by Dean Tula Giannini and given by my distinguished colleague Ken Soehner, Arthur K. Watson Chief Librarian of the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Met.

Photo © Erika Hauser