Background:
The world of contemporary art has the reputation of being a dog-eat-dog place - a scene where only the strong or the beautiful survive and the existence of all others is forgotten by the next morning. The same here-today-gone-tomorrow attitude also exists for the remnants of this world, the exhibition announcements, flyers, prospectuses, and other ephemera created in the wake of the excitement. But what about those forgotten artists, the ones that don't make it into the history books? And what about the artists who have yet to make their mark on history? Groundbreaking research needs primary documents to get to the truth of the situation. The supposedly unimportant, throw-away materials used to advertise time-based events and productions are often the only record of the event. History takes a long time to be created. Where do we find information on events that are no longer current, but not quite history? In ephemera files, like the ones in the Arts of the Book Collection (AOB).
AOB has scores of materials that have been collected over many years on various contemporary artists and presses. This material would be valuable to historians, practicing artists, curators, collectors, and fans of book art - if only it was easily accessible. Clive Phillpot, a librarian who champions artists' books, has written that "announcement cards…contain...essential information…[and] these can …be vital pieces of information for researchers when they are investigating the provenance of artworks or when they need biographical information, and especially when they seek to confirm the very existence of an artist not recorded in books and catalogues." The proposed pilot project will increase access to this rare material and promote research and scholarship on book arts and artists.
Methodology:
The proposed pilot project will begin with the digitization of 200 items taken
from the AOB ephemera files (at minimum, more if time, server space and selection
permit). This sampling will include a variety of formats and will cover both
small presses and individual artists. At least one person or press will be selected
on which to digitize all materials.
These objects will be scanned in the Digital Conversion Facility. The images will reside on server space allotted to the Facility on the Jeeves full-text server, which is maintained by ITS.
The images will be described using a subset of the Dublin Core appropriate for ephemera and images. This database will then conform to standards applied to other Yale digital library projects. The metadata will be kept in an SQL database with a Microsoft Access front-end, a system that has worked well in other library projects (i.e. the e-journals database). The database serving the images will be an iteration of the Beinecke Digital Library database, customized for the Arts of the Book.
The Beinecke Digital Library image database was chosen for several reasons. It is easily customizable to the needs of the Arts of the Book Collection, with graphics and functionality appropriate to their images. The database itself is perfectly suited to viewing images on the web in groups of the viewers choosing. In addition, images merely need to be created and stored on a server, rather than go through a lengthy derivative process. However, both the database and the images also can be pointed to at a later date from the Luna Imaging software. The items will be cataloged according to established metadata standards, so these images can one day be viewed using Luna. However, the database can be developed quickly and flexibly and expanded easily in the future, while Luna currently requires a great deal of work, which would be inefficient to devote to a small pilot project.
On the technical end, this project will be a model for other small image databases to be developed at Yale University Library. Other units could create databases, knowing they would one day have the option to integrate them into a larger image management system through the use of established open standards, but in the meantime be able to produce useful scholarly resources relatively independently and without delay.
We will evaluate several aspects of the project once it has been completed. We will be able to determine whether this methodology and the Beinecke Digital Library software would be appropriate for small collections, based on ease of development of the database and interface. We will also evaluate whether the project enhances access to the collection of ephemera and whether development of a larger database would be useful and feasible for the Arts of the Book collection and to the field of Artists' Books in general.
An important note: Copyright issues will be considered but not fully addressed in this phase of the project. The vision is for now to create a small local database to improve accessibility of the material on the Yale campus. This project could be advertised to the larger scholarly community, but would only be accessible through the Yale network, or perhaps only on-site in the library. If the project produces a valuable resource for the Yale community, research into the legalities of copyright would be explored extensively for wider availability of the project.
Timeline:
January-March: selection and organization of materials to scan, work on iteration
of the Beinecke Database, preparing workflow for student worker
April-July: scanning material, cataloging
August-October: tweak database, create web interface for resource
November: go live, publicize to relevant parties, evaluate project
| Student Labor (scanning, web design) | $11/hr x 5 hours/week x 16 weeks (80 hours total) | $880 |
| Memory: Back-up CD-ROMs | 15 (650 MB each) | $15 |
| Total: | $895 |
Benefits
to the Library:
For the field of Artists' Books: The development of a resource of this
type will have lasting benefits to the book arts community and the larger community
of art historians by providing access to rare materials and thus promote scholarship
on contemporary artists and their work.
For Yale University Library: This project will test whether the Beinecke Digital Library system is appropriate for smaller digital image collections created by library units at Yale.
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