Blog Migrating to a New Location

The Visual Resources Center blog can now be found at this location:

http://arthistory.berkeley.edu/resources/vrc-blog

Developing an Open Catalogue Raisonné Platform

In conducting art historical or visual studies research, faculty, students, and independent scholars face the challenges of organizing images, descriptions of works, and related visual and textual resources, and, more often than not, do so by using available digital tools that likely were not designed to directly support these activities. Beyond simply organizing, researchers need reliable means for describing and then mining the significant relationships and interconnections that they have found or made between these resources. They may also want to share these resources online in order to promote dialogue and encourage new findings. Each of these pursuits can be addressed through the creation of a digital catalog (or, as appropriate, a catalogue raisonné) backed with a database structure.

In a guest post on the Digital Humanities at Berkeley blog, Senior Digital Curator Kathryn Stine provides an update on a collaborative research project that the Visual Resources Center has been conducting with Associate Professor Elizabeth Honig and incoming graduate student Jess Bailey to design an online toolkit that will support art history or visual studies researchers engaged in creating database-backed digital catalogs, the Online Catalogue Raisonné Platform (OCRP). The OCRP project team, which also includes Principal Digital Curator Lynn Cunningham, Senior Digital Curator Jason Hosford, and a Drupal consultant, has been working since early 2015 on preliminary designs for a freely available online platform, modeled on Professor Honig's online catalogue documenting Jan Brueghel's work. The OCRP will ultimately help researchers record, store, link, search, and share images, descriptions, and related resources as a catalog organized around authorship, theme, material and techniques, geography, or other attributes of the artwork or visual culture contained therein.

The OCRP project has been initially funded by through the Digital Humanities at Berkeley's Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant "Capacity Building and Integration in the Digital Humanities" along with in-kind support from the Department of the History of Art.

CAA Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts

Much uncertainty surrounds how and when images or other copyrighted material can be used, especially for teaching and scholarship. For a use of copyrighted material to be considered fair in the United States, four factors should be considered (simplified below from those set out in Section 107 of U.S. copyright law) :

1. Purpose of the use
2. Kind of work used
3. Amount used
4. Effect on the market

While many educators, librarians, image curators, and other archives and museum professionals have become adept at reciting these four factors, their interpretation and lawful application is often quite complex and subject to emerging case law. Recent court decisions, including that in the Authors Guild v. HathiTrust (2014), are moving in the direction of qualifying, if not encouraging, how fair use can be applied when creating or sharing digital content.



The College Art Association (CAA) has recently released a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts. Made public just prior to the annual CAA conference last month (February, 2015), this new code of best practices seeks to provide a “clear framework in which to apply fair use with confidence, knowing the shared norms of [the] field.” It is preceded by CAA’s publication in 2014 of “Copyright, Permissions, and Fair Use among Visual Artists and the Academic and Museum Visual Arts Communities: An Issues Report,” a key finding of which was that “the practices of many professionals in the visual arts are constrained due to the pervasive perception that permissions to use third-party materials are required even where a confident exercise of fair use would be appropriate.” As it turns out, many of us who make and share creative work have been engaging in self-censorship because we’ve simply not found adequate clarity on how to apply fair use.

The new code is the result of the “consensus of professionals in the visual arts who use copyrighted images, texts, and other materials in their creative and scholarly work.” This team consulted legal experts and codes of practice developed by other communities to guide the application of fair use and gathered feedback from the CAA community through 12,000 surveys and discussions with 120 visual arts professionals, findings from which were published in the 2014 report.

Encouragingly, in addition providing vetted community consensus on fair use principles as they apply to work with visual arts, the CAA code also briefly addresses the use of public domain material. Even though this is not a primary focus of the code, the authors call upon “the reasoning of the decision in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.,” to assert that “copyright-free material also includes faithful photographic reproductions of two-dimensional artworks, which are distinct from the artworks they depict.” And, while they acknowledge that Bridgeman does not “on its face apply to still photographs of three-dimensional works,” the authors note that these photographs “might be used pursuant to fair use in light of the principles and limitations set forth in the code.”

To learn more, the College Art Association is offering a series of five webinars on fair use in the visual arts starting March 27 and running through June 5.

Two projects in the Department of History of Art have received grants from the new Digital Humanities at Berkeley Initiative

Professor Lisa Trever submitted a successful proposal to integrate digital components into her fall 2015 course "Mural Painting and the Ancient Americas." This seminar will explore the traditions of palace, temple, and tomb painting in ancient and pre-Hispanic Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, and the American Southwest, as well as modern and contemporary legacies of mural painting in Latin America and the United States. The Course Development Grant will allow the class to experiment with digital technologies for rendering digital models of ancient murals and for capturing site visits to murals in the Bay Area. This project is supported through the collaboration of digital curators and research specialists in the department's Visual Resources Center and the Archaeological Research Facility.

In addition, Professor Elizabeth Honig and the VRC have received Collaborative Research funds from the Digital Humanities initiative to create a repurposable platform that can be used to catalog the works of any visual artist. Built using Drupal, this platform will be made freely available to other scholars interested in building and sharing online catalogues raisonnés, which are among the critical research products/tools of art historians, typically including descriptions and images of all of the known works of a given artist. This grant will be an extension of Dr. Honig’s project janbrueghel.net, which is also a collaboration with colleagues from the Duke University Math department and is funded by the National Science Foundation, the UC Humanities Research Institute, and the following UC Berkeley funders: CITRIS, URAP, and the Townsend Center for the Humanities.

A New Mobile Image Sharing and Projection App

We’re seeing increased adoption of mobile devices used for sharing and projecting images in the classroom and at conferences. A new iPad/iPhone app called Wölff (https://www.wolffapp.com/) promises to improve mobile device use in serving up images; it got a lot of buzz at the CAA 2015 conference, where it was just launched.

Named for the Swiss art historian Heinrich Wölfflin (who embraced slide projection at the turn of the twentieth century) and designed for use on iPads, Wölff lets users crowdsource high-res images of works of art from a growing list of partner institutions. Created by Greg Bryda, an art history PhD student at Yale University, Wölff has been funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign. In Bryda’s words, the app “exploits the tactility of handling high-res digital images on touch screens,” supporting typical image investigation strategies used by art history faculty and students including panning, zooming, and side-by-side comparisons. Image presentations can be projected from an iPad/iPhone that connects to a projector system either using a dongle or wirelessly using AirPlay. Perhaps most exciting about Wölff is that those in the audience can follow along on their own mobile devices, exploring images both independently and concurrently with the presentation.

Wölff is available at several levels of service, with features and functions ranging from a basic, free subscription to fee-based subscriptions for either institutions or individuals. History of Art Visual Resources staff are eager to test-drive this promising app and will report back on its usability and suitability for incorporation into teaching for those interested in using mobile devices.

For more on Wölff, see this recent article in the Yale Daily News: http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/02/12/new-art-history-app-launched/

How to Compress a PDF file (Mac)

PDFs often can be quite large, making it difficult to e-mail or upload the files. It may be necessary to compress the document to make the file-size smaller.

To compress a PDF file:

1.) Open your PDF using the Preview application

2.) Choose File > Export

3.) Choose Reduce File Size from the Quartz Filter pop-up menu

This process compresses the images in the file. The compressed images look the same as the originals when viewed onscreen, but may appear to be of lower quality when printed.

Create a Customized Start-time for YouTube videos linked within PowerPoint

If you are interested in showing a just a portion of a video clip from YouTube linked from within your PPT presentation, you can create a link with a customized start-time. To generate a customized link, follow 3 simple steps:

1.) Click the 'share' icon located directly below the video.
2.) Check the 'start at' box and fill in your desired start time.
3.) A customized link has now been created. Copy and paste this new link into your PPT.

For more information on how to show a video within your PPT presentation, see our document on Using Video in Powerpoint.

Digital Art History Summer Institutes

The Getty Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities are sponsoring four summer institutes on the digital humanities during 2014. These events will be hosted at Harvard, UCLA, and George Mason University. Admission for all of the programs is on a competitive basis. All participants will receive a stipend covering housing and travel expenses. Applications are due by March 1st and March 15th, 2014.

Rebuilding the Portfolio: DH for Art Historians

Roy Rosenzweig Center for History in New Media, George Mason University 

July 7-18, 2014

The curriculum will include building digital collections, working with textual and non-textual sources, visualization, data mining, network analysis, and spatial history. They are specifically seeking applications from individuals who have had very limited or no training in using digital methods and tools, or in computing. 

Doing Digital History

Roy Rosenzweig Center for History in New Media, George Mason University
August 4-15, 2014

The program includes text and data mining, data visualization,  spatial history, and visual mapping. They are seeking applications from faculty, public historians, archivists, librarians, museum professionals, and independent scholars specializing in American history, who have had very limited or no training in using digital methods and tools, or in computing, and who lack a supportive digital community at their home institutions.


Beyond the Digitized Slide Library
University of California, Los Angeles
July 28-August 6, 2014

Participants will learn about debates and key concepts in the digital humanities and gain hands-on experience with tools and techniques for art historical research (including metadata basics, data visualization, network graphs, and digital mapping).


Beautiful Data: Telling Stories About Art with Open Collections 

metaLAB (at) Harvard

June 16-June 27, 2014

The Beautiful Data program focuses on using digitized collections for art historical scholarship. Participants will be introduced to concepts and skills necessary to make use of open collections to develop art-historical storytelling through data visualization, interactive media, enhanced curatorial description and exhibition practice, digital publication, and data-driven, object-oriented teaching. The institute is intended for art historians, scholars of visual culture, and museum professionals at all career stages.

Batch Importer for PPT 2011 on Macs

I've created an automator file for batch importing folders of jpgs to PowerPoint 2011 for Mac. Instead of loading your jpgs to your PPT 1-by-1, the tool will load all of the images in 1 step. The automated process also resizes the images to screen-sized within the PPT slides. You may download the file here.

See this 30-second video tutorial to learn how to use the tool:
http://screencast.com/t/LCiVLfOE

Art.sy Education Offers 25,000+ Open-Access Images

Art.sy Education has partnered with over 650 museums, galleries and nonprofits to provide access to their collections from one portal. Over half of the Art.sy images are downloadable on an open-access basis and may be used without restriction. Look for images on their site with a 'download image' button. See the Art.sy site for more information.

Grant Opportunities for Digital Humanities Projects

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has announced start-up grants for digital humanities projects. The NEH program awards relatively small grants to support the planning stages of innovative projects that promise to benefit the humanities.

The deadline for proposals is September 11, 2014 for projects beginning May 2015. See their website for more information.

Digital Humanities Summer Institute

The Getty Foundation has provided funding for a digital humanities summer institute for art historians to be held at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in 2014. The institute aims to engage art historians, graduate students, and scholars from varied backgrounds, including curators, art librarians and archivists.

The institute is now accepting applications. For more information and to apply, see their website.

ARTstor Announces Image Group Download

ARTstor has added a new tool for group image downloads. You may already be familiar with their existing tool for batch downloading directly into PowerPoint, but now they have launched a new tool for batch downloading groups of images as jpgs.

You may download groups of 150 images or fewer with one click. These files will download as a zip file containing jpgs. Look for this icon when logged into your ARTstor account and in an image group:

For more information and a short instructional video created by ARTstor, click here.

Getty Announces 'Open Content' Program

The Paul J. Getty Museum announces their new 'Open Content' Program. All of the Getty's public domain objects, totalling around 4,600, are available for download as high-resolution images and are free to use, modify, and publish for any purpose. They will be releasing more images over time. You can browse the images currently available from this link. You may read more about their program here.

Update 11/10/2013: The Getty Open Content Program now has around 10,000 images available for unrestricted use.

Using Video in PowerPoint for Mac

Do you have a great video you want to show in your class but don't know how to seamlessly integrate it into your PowerPoint presentation?  Today I gave a tech tutorial in the VRC demonstrating how to do exactly this.  If you were unable to make it I am available to sit down with you for a personal session.  There is also an instructional guide that you can download here.

Instructional Sessions

The Visual Resources Collection will be presenting a series of instructional sessions for departmental faculty, staff , and graduate students. Dates and topics are as follows:


Bspace Schedule and Calendar Tools
Wednesday 2/6, 12:30-1:30, 308A Doe
Presented by: Lynn Cunningham
A brief tutorial on how to set up online office-hour scheduling from within bspace. You can do away with the paper-format scheduling, and your students will be able to sign up for office hours virtually. If you are unable to attend the session, I have created a quick start guide that you may download from the VRC blog: havrc.blogspot.com/2013/01/online-office-hour-sign-up-in-bspace.html

PowerPoint Tools -- Video
Wednesday 3/6, 12:30-1:30, 308A Doe
Presented by: Jason Hosford
Jason will discuss how to use video in PowerPoint. He will instruct users on how to embed, link, and play video in a presentation.

PowerPoint Tools -- Transitions and Animations
Wednesday 3/20, 12:30-1:30, 308A Doe
Presented by: Jason Hosford
Jason will cover transitions and animations in PowerPoint.

Europeana Portal
Wednesday 4/17, 12:30-1:30, 308A Doe
Presented by: Lynn Cunningham
Lynn will present on Europeana, a search engine for the digitized collections of museums, libraries, archives and galleries across Europe. Europeana is a single access point to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records. It is an authoritative source of information coming from European cultural and scientific institutions. www.europeana.eu/portal/

Digital Photography
Wednesday 5/1, 12:30-1:30, 308A Doe
Presented by: Julie Wolf
TBD

What size should images be for PowerPoint?

For clarification on the sometimes muddy issue of image resolution for PowerPoint presentations, Microsoft has a good explanation on their website.

In short, the resolution of your images will only display as large as the projector's (and your computer's) capabilities. The standard size for projection output typically has been 1024x768 at 96 dpi, but this is changing as technology changes. The new Christie projectors that we have just installed in Moffitt have an output resolution as high as 1920x1080. However, if your computer is only capable of projecting at 1024x768, it defaults to this as an output if you have the monitor mirroring setting enabled.

For more information on the Christie DHD800 projector specifications, see their website.

Projector troubleshooting tips

I have created a document with the most common projector problems and instructions on how to resolve them. You may download the projector troubleshooting guide here. Educational Technology Services is also available to help, should you encounter a problem during class. ETS can be reached at 510-643-8637. They also offer one-on-one classroom equipment orientations. You may schedule your orientation on the ETS website.

Is Your Mac Projecting Too Dark?

If your Macintosh is displaying too dark when projected, you may need to change your color profile. You can access the color profile options under the display preferences on your Mac. Education Technology Services has outlined simple instructions on how to select the best display settings on their website help center.

ARTstor Goes Mobile!

ARTstor registered users can now access the ARTstor image database through the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Read-only features such as searching, browsing, zooming, and viewing are available in the mobile format. Log-on to ARTstor from your mobile device by going to http://library.artstor.org in the Safari browser. For more details, visit the ARTstor Help page at http://help.artstor.org/wiki/index.php/ARTstor_Mobile.