Managing Image Collections

This book explores issues surrounding all aspects of visual collection management, taken from real-world experience in creating management systems and digitizing core content. Readers will gain the knowledge to manage the digitization process from beginning to end, assess and define the needs of their particular project, and evaluate digitization options. Additionally, they will select strategies which best meet current and future needs, acquire the knowledge to select the best images for digitization, and understand the legal issues surrounding digitization of visual collections. Offers practical information for the busy information professional Concentrates solely on image management Focuses on unique needs of born digital and digitized images

The study presents data and commentary from 55 institutions that manage digital image collections, including museums, historical societies, botanic gardens, churches colleges and universities, government agencies and others. The study looks at a broad range of issues in cataloging, findability, marketing, revenue generation, technology use, rights, digitization, staffing, budgets, access, preservation, image collection building and many other issues of interest to administrators of large digital image collections. Just a few of the report's many findings are that: *Only 9.1% of the institutions sampled acquire images from imaging vendors; mostly this was done by college and university collections in the United States. *10% of the institutions sampled had annual revenues from image sales and licensing that exceeded $50,000.*No organization in the sample chose outsourced vendor scanning as their primary means of building their collections though 14.55% chose it second and 12.73% ranked it third*43.64% of those sampled use in house developed authority files. Government agencies and "other non-profits" were the most likely to use in house developed authority files while colleges and universities were the least likely.*Google Forms was used occasionally by only 3.64% of survey participants for crowdsourcing though 14.55% of the sample felt that they might use it for this purpose in the future. *More than 64% of organizations with fewer than 70 employees provided access to their digital image collections through Facebook. *We asked the sample to indicate which users that they permit to retrieve image files, first asking about all users. 32.73% allow all users to retrieve image files. This was most common among colleges and universities, of which 53.85% allowed it. *14.55% were using replication in their preservation policies, including 29.41% of non-US organizations in the sample.

Human beings have always had a penchant for collecting images. The challenge today is that almost anything and everything in the world is available as a viewable image. Consequently, say O'Connor and Greisdorf, image collections can no longer be the result of ad hoc processes rooted in antiquated methodologies. To this end, they present the reader with an interdisciplinary approach to the principles, practices and belief systems underlying categorization and image management. The book is divided into three parts: defining the nature of images; describing how images are used; and explaining how and why images are collected (including the mechanics of storage and accessibility). Individual chapters contain a historical perspective on the subject matter and supporting research. Liberally enhanced with illustrations from the authors' own collections. For anyone who cognitively engages with image collections either vocationally or avocationally.

The Commission on Preservation and Access has published a number of reports on the preservation and access implications of scanning text and microfilm. This report focuses on what sets the digitization of visual collections apart from other scanning projects. Projects to digitize visual collections present their own unique set of questions and concerns, as well as issues that overlap with digital capture of text. The report provides basic suggestions about planning digitization projects, practical guidelines for working with images, and some final thoughts about the future systems and infrastructure needed to provide collections of images over the long-term. To use digitization as a tool to provide worthwhile, enduring access to treasured cultural and historical resources, one must become informed, establish guidelines, and proceed in rational, measured steps to assure that such reformatting of visual matter is accomplished as well and as cost-effectively as possible. The paper includes the following sections: (1) Introduction (Digital Images as a Reproduction Medium and Of Letters, Lines and Images: Reproductions in Print Publications); (2) The Original Object and Its Reproduction; (3) A Framework for Assessing Image Quality; (4) Color Matching for Image Collections (Color Management, Transformation and Image Output and Controlling Images in Distribution Environments); (5) Documentation and the Integration of Image and Text (Production and Management Documentation); (6) Building Image Collections; and (7) Image Access and User Environments (Rights To Image Collections, Electronic Publications and Use of Visual Materials, and How Will Collections of Digital Images Be Created?). (Contains 45 references.) (SWC)

This book focuses on the methodologies, organization, and communication of digital image collection research that utilizes social media content. ("Image" is here understood as a cultural, conventional, and commercial—stock photo—representation.) The lecture offers expert views that provide different interpretations of images and their potential implementations. Linguistic and semiotic methodologies as well as eye-tracking research are employed to both analyze images and comprehend how humans consider them, including which salient features generally attract viewers' attention. This literature review covers image—specifically photographic—research since 2005, when major social media platforms emerged. A citation analysis includes an overview of co-citation maps that demonstrate the nexus of image research literature and the journals in which they appear. Eye tracking tests whether scholarly templates focus on the proper features of an image, such as people, objects, time, etc., and if a prescribed theme affects the eye movements of the observer. The results may point to renewed requirements for building image search engines. As it stands, image management already requires new algorithms and a new understanding that involves text recognition and very large database processing. The aim of this book is to present different image research areas and demonstrate the challenges image research faces. The book's scope is, by necessity, far from comprehensive, since the field of digital image research does not cover fake news, image manipulation, mobile photos, etc.; these issues are very complex and need a publication of their own. This book should primarily be useful for students in library and information science, psychology, and computer science.

This book presents the proceedings of the “CoMa 2013: Safeguarding Image Collections” international conference held in Brussels, on 31 October 2013, and offers the reader not only a wide variety of subjects relating to the preservation of image collections, but also an overview of the different professions and practices involved in the preservation of photographic heritage. The proceedings contain some practical examples illustrating how CEN regulations and generally accepted standards can be translated into daily management. Moreover, they transcend a purely scientific debate by also questioning the value and meaning of image collections, and by offering a base for anyone dealing with photographs to think about their long-term preservation. Divided into four sections, the proceedings provide the reader with an overview of: 1) Theoretical questions relating to the meaning, value and impact of photographic collections; 2) Some examples of collection management practices, storage and exhibition of photographs; 3) Results of scientific research concerning the stability of photographic supports and their conservation treatments; 4) Digitization practices of image collections and new tools to assign content and value to historical photographs. In addition to traditional conference papers, the book also includes essays on the future of photographic collections, written by established restorers and art historians.

"This monograph profiles the management practices and other business decisions of nine high-profile photo collections.... The photographic collections profiled represent a braod range of public and private institutions of varying sizes, from the 11.5 million-Image Collection of the National Geographic Society to the much smaller but certainly significant 120,000-image collection of the International center of Photography in New York"--Introduction.