Introduction to Art Image Access: Tools, Standards, and Strategies (review)

Introduction to Art Image Access, published by the Getty Research Institute, examines the many challenges art institutions face when making their collections available electronically or on the web. This introductory book of data management ideas and solutions deals with the trickiness of data and offers many good insights. It discusses, for example, the many dilemmas of the digital archivist. This is a job that demands a plethora of skills which includes not just a librarian's attention to detail, but a good knowledge of databases, filing, digital imaging and scanning. If that were not enough, it also demands familiarity with all sorts of standardized file formats. Combine these skills with a good eye and a background in art history (depending on specialization) and you have one very valuable human resource. For most institutions, however, the absence of a digital archivist means they must have a team of experts. The difficulty becomes that a team of experts brings with it a lot of differing opinions regarding the selection and design of a cataloging system. That is this book's strong point: it uses art terminology to help art professionals understand the complexity of their undertaking.

Most often it is an arts administrator or an artist who grows into a job like this, picking up the technology as it evolves. But unfortunately the skills of the traditional librarian are often missing from an art professional's education. So too are the dynamic computer

The dilemma of our information age: how to transfer huge holdings of paper files and documents to digital formats.

(Photo © Chris Cobb)

skills needed to do the job. The task is a challenge even for professional librarians converting to web-based and electronic access systems. Informed, responsible planning and the managing of an institution's resources all wrap up into one goal: art image access.

Sara Shatford Layne's essay addresses the contemporary art professional's dilemma, defining as well as possible "What is an art image?" and "What is subject access?" These are simple-sounding questions, but Introduction to Art Image Access introduces a number of complex contingencies more akin to the tech world than to the traditional art world. In order to adequately conserve, record and make available works of art, costs can quickly outpace the value of the service being offered. For this reason long-term planning is critical, the dilemmas of which can be as fascinating as they are problematic.

The fascination is that in our era of pervasive and ubiquitous digital technology, people around the world have access to major libraries—from the Library of Congress to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. This unprecedented worldwide access is one of the most amazing things about the world we live in today. The problem, however, is this: any institution or individual (a collector, for example) typically faces a sea of images, data and text. Each class of information has its own peculiar methodologies and standards. The most potentially confusing element addressed here is that of indexing. Shatford Layne discusses what a work of art is "of." She uses the Edward Curtis photograph The Eclipse Dance as an example. This image is a gelatin silver print that depicts several Native American Indians dancing around a fire. The lighting makes it impossible to make out the details of their bodies. Some are barely visible through smoke. "Although it may be obvious," she writes, "the 'of' aspect of a work of art is not necessarily simple." Shatford Layne asks is this "of a dance?" or "of an eclipse?" She makes it clear that indexing is harder than it seems.

Almost every piece of electronic information out there is in a database somewhere. This book, edited by Murtha Baca, head of the Standards Program at the Getty Research Institute, deals with the "issues, tools, standards and strategies" of providing art information electronically. The primary...