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VRA-NC Meeting: May 2, 2003, Chinese Historical Society

VRA
VRA-NC Members

Hosted by Irene Anderson and Nina Hagiwara

Attending: G. Jackson, T. Levy, N. Hagiwara, A. Le Bourveau, C. Schultz, K. Kessel, I. Andersen, N. Olexo, S. Calhoun, J. Worona, T. Levy, N. Brailo, G. Rankin, F. Snyder, S. Backman, L. Treffinger, R. Kammer, B. Barber, J. Wang, M. Misunas, I. DaRoza, K. Hardin, B. Egan, L. Youngberg, S. Brunzel

Business Meeting:

VRA 2003 Conference Summaries:

  1. Trudy Levy: "What does it take to create a digital image collection?"
    Trudy said that the California State Library InfoPeople project (www.infopeople.org) offers classes in "Managing Digital Image Projects."  Cost is $75 for 4 weeks.
    Trudy summarized the panel she led at the Houston VRA conference, a joint presentation of the VRA and the Museum Computer Network.
    Trudy said that the first step is asking "Why?", to use as a guide for planning and setting goals. Is the main purpose of the collection creating an archive, or is it to support printing and publishing?  Is the target user an Art History student, web users, professors?  The user influences the kind of information that is required to represent or define the object. 
  2. Trudy Levy: "Image Management at the NASA/Johnson Space Center" 
    Trudy was surprised to find that they use notebooks of images, card catalogs, and 35mm film on rolls. Since they used to be a photo group, they are mostly photographers and people with printing backgrounds, and are more comfortable with that technology. The computer makes a better filing system, and is a more efficient way to access images that are not used. They use a Commodore 64 on the space shuttle for images. For scanning, they prefer to hire artists for their "eye", they can teach anyone the technology. 
    Having a color management system is important, and you need a profile on your color management system. You must know what you’re doing when correcting color. You need to know your monitor’s quirks. It’s important to keep a raw scan as a master image.
    NASA uses tape backup. Best backup is a hard drive, also, a remote backup. Corey said that storage mediums should be checked every 5 years.
  3. Karen Kessel: "Native North American Art: Resources for Locating and Cataloging Images"The moderator of the panel was Jeanette Mills, University of Washington, a specialist in Northwest Coast Indian art.  Sheila Hannah, University of New Mexico, manages an Art History slide database on Indian Cultural History for a Ph.D. program in Native American Art. Karen Kessel, Sonoma State University, has a M.S. in Interdisciplinary Art History.Various references were cited, including the Handbook of Native North American Indians (artists names at the end of chapters, with all variations of names); Native North American Art (Oxford University Press, with good color photos, discusses the difference between art and artifacts, no general agreement for standardizing cataloging with group names and geography); Atlas of the North American Indian (Carl Waldman, includes maps of culture areas, habitations); the Peabody Museum's website for Hopi Kachinas (http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/exhibitions.html); Vircona, the University of New Mexico's database of contemporary Native American artists.
    Sheila Hannah discussed the VRA Core 3 and its application to Native American artists. The problems are distinctions between the nation/culture and style/period.
  4. Karen Kessel: "Influencing Skills for Positive Outcomes"Karen reported on the half-day workshop led by Kathryn Deiss, Director for Education and Training, Chicago Library System. This workshop focused on how to influence others in the workplace, by establishing credibility and a common framework, and also by knowing your best persuasive style.
  5. Corey Schultz: "Creating I.P. Policy and Guidelines for the VR Collection"This session was organized by Maryly Snow, VRA Intellectual Property Rights Committee Chair, University of California, Berkeley and was led by Georgia Harper, Office of General Counsel, University of Texas System.

Copyright is defined by:

Other important laws to include:

Copyright was created to balance owner control & market.
Things to consider for VR collections:

  1. Character of use: nonprofit, restricted access, educational
  2. Nature of material: published, factual, non-fiction
  3. Small amounts, not heart of work (amount & importance) \
  4. If there's an effect on the market.
  5. Risk? How much are you willing to take?

Use of CONFU guidelines for existing policy.

Are the images available from a licensed vendor? Check images every couple of years to see if vendor has the image. If so, you must purchase a copy from the vendor.
ArtSTOR-entire collection of UC San Diego is being digitized, will be available for a fee.
2D work created after 1923 and architecture after 1990 is under copyright. The architect or institution owns the copyright of the building.

2D, pre 1923, is in the public domain, a publisher cannot claim copyright, or a photographer can claim that its not a slavish reproduction. A slavish reproduction copy means that nothing is added to it.

There were many questions directed to Corey regarding the "slavish reproduction" matter, as well as questions regarding copystand photography. 

We decided that the matter needs to be dealt with in depth at another meeting, and broke for lunch at the R & G lounge on Kearney St.After lunch, we toured the Chinese Historical Society's main exhibit, and met Benjamin Chinn, who was exhibiting his black and white photographs of S.F.'s Chinatown.

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