Organization > Chapters > Northern California > Meetings

VRA-NC Meeting: November 15, 2002, Stanford University

vra
VRA-NC, ARLIS-NC, & MCN-CA members touring 
Andy Goldsworthy's "Stone River".

Hosted by Corey Schultz, VRA/NC Vice President

Attending: G. Jackson, C. Schultz, N. Hagiwara, A. LeBourveau, T. Levy, I. Andersen, M. Wolfe, G. Rankin

  1. VRA/NC chapter business meeting
    1. Chapter member voted to accept the minutes from the Sonoma State meeting (April 19, 2002).
    2. Treasurer's report: Andree LeBourveau said that we have $540.00 in the account, and $120 for 2003 dues should be collected in the next few months.  Trudy Levy reminded everyone that membership in the national VRA was a prerequisite for chapter membership.
    3. Giovanna Jackson made announcements regarding the VRA strategic plan (check it out at www.vraweb.org, Member’s Only section), and upcoming conferences in Baltimore (ARLIS/NA), Houston (VRA), Portland, Oregon (ARLIS/NA, summer 2003). VRA/NC will help the Portland chapter with the VRA 2004 conference.
    4. Corey Schultz volunteered to put a chapter website together, so that that we would have a "web presence" on the national VRA website.  The site would include meeting announcements, bylaws, past meeting minutes, and contact people.
    5. Giovanna Jackson updated us on the California State University (CSU) Visual Resources Specialists’ October meeting.  They are collaborating on an image database for the CSU system, which is currently hosted by Sonoma State University. The project was funded by the CSU Chancellor’s office. They are also working on a master catalog, but are waiting to see how ArtSTOR works.
    6. VRA/NC will have an election next spring for Vice Chair and Secretary. The group decided that it made more sense for the Treasurer to take care of the membership list, since the Treasurer deposits the checks. Chapter bylaws need to be amended, a copy will be emailed to G. Jackson.
    7. Corey Schultz volunteered to be on an outreach committee, and members suggested possible recruits from other universities and museums.
    8. The Summer Institute in Management of Visual Resources Collection that was to be held in 2003 at Rice University, Houston, has been postponed until 2004. However, there will be a joint CSU/UC workshop in 2003, possibly in Fullerton.  They haven't yet invited private schools to attend the meeting.
    9. The Spring meeting will be held on May 2 at San Francisco State University. Cataloging and the VRA core will be the main topics. Corey will contact Janice Eckland from UCB to see if she can speak at the meeting.
  2. David Rumsey Map Collection presentation & Luna Insight presentation by Glen Worthey, Stanford University Libraries.

    David Rumsey showed off his map collection (http://www.davidrumsey.com), which uses the Luna software.  His collection of 7200 maps can be viewed free on his website, using a simple browser (no downloading required), a Java-enhance browser, and a GIS browser. Users are able zoom in to view the fine print of the maps, texts, and objects that make up the collection. The Java version allows the user to create groups of maps, and include annotations. 
     He began his presentation with a 1.6GB file of an 8 x 8 foot map, which was scanned at 300 dpi (Henry Popple's composite of the British Empire, 1733).  That was followed by maps showing California, the S.F. Bay area, Santa Clara County, the peninsula, and the Stanford area. He included a cycler's guide and road map of California. 
    The next part of his presentation featured the AMICO library, its search features, and its capability to search across collections. New features make it more "Windows-centric". A personal collection can be added, and metadata can be edited, presentations can be exported to PowerPoint or html.

    The GIS demonstration included some interesting applications using both old and new maps. New maps could be overlaid onto old maps to show historical comparisons, and historical maps could be manipulated to look 3-dimensional. A nifty "flyover" tool was used to take the audience through a simulated "tour" of Yosemite Valley.

    During the question and answer period, David Rumsey said that 300 dpi seemd to cover most detail.  Luna never opens the entire image, never delivers more than 2MB per image.  The whole file never opens up. To import an image to PowerPoint, use the screen capture feature. He asked the audience for feedback on faculty resistance to Luna.  Audience responses included that it's a generational issue, lack of infrastructure (equipment), cost. At Stanford, it hasn't been used widely, the Kircher collection is used by the Kircher scholars, and the Chicana art by the Chicana art history professor.  It was noted that students are more receptive to the database, and the undergraduates should be targeted first. Pricing structure is based on the number of students, $0.25 per undergrad per year.

    Glen Worthey, of Stanford University Libraries, described the "back end" of the operation, what it took to implement the Luna software on Stanford's network. Stanford University has three collections accessible by LUNA software: the A. Kircher Project, Chicana Art, and the David Rumsey Collection.  Three collections that will be added include the African Map collection, the Stanford Geological Survey, Stanford Historical Photos, and the Hoover Collection of Political Posters.

    One of the problems associated with university campuses is hacking, and Stanford has banned Windows servers from the campus, due to their vulnerability to hackers.  Unfortunately, this meant that the Insight Java browser was not available from Netscape or Internet Explorer on the server.  The Rumsey images are in a Unix filesystem.  There is an image server in Italy, which logs into the Stanford Network. 

    Luna provides lots of support, has a rich menu of service options, and is very expensive.  There are interoperability issues, as it doesn't work well with the library catalog, Google, etc. The Chicana Art collection was set up with metadata in an Excel flat file with 5-6 fields. The Kircher collection was set up as a relational database with 23 tables.  Luna took both collections and made them both searchable.
     
  3. Business lunch, recap of morning meetings, ArtSTOR report from Giovanna Jackson.

    G. Jackson is the only West Coast representative (out of eight members) to the Joint ARLIS/NA-VRA ArtSTOR Collections Advisory Committee, appointed at ArtSTOR's request by the respective presidents of ARLIS and VRA.  They met in late October in New York City for the first meeting. Their focus is on an image database for the humanities, rather than the fine arts. The ArtSTOR website is "under construction", and they are encouraging interested parties to check out the site when it's ready. 
  4. Tour of the Cantor Center, "Stone River", Andy Goldsworthy's stone sculpture, Maya Lin's timepiece sculpture, and the Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden.

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