The primary objectives of this qualitative research study were the identification, description and explanation of image users’ behaviors. The research examined the image needs, the methods of image retrieval, image selection criteria, and the use of visual materials among several professional image user groups. Also explored were the difficulties these users experienced in their work with visual materials. The findings of the study provide information professionals with the fundamental details of image users’ behaviors. The research presented here should prove useful to system designers, image librarians and collection managers. The study also serves as a framework against which future research can be conducted.Twenty participants from across four professional image user groups, archaeologist, architect, art historian and artist, were recruited for the study. The user groups were selected based on their similarly strong reliance on images of cultural materials in their work. It was believed that selecting users of similar visual materials would clarify the differences discovered among the groups. Data was collected from the participants through a survey and one-on-one semistructured interviews and analysis was completed using case-ordered displays and the constant comparative method.The findings of the study revealed several variations in the image behaviors of the user groups. These consisted of variations in: the reasons behind why images were needed, the kinds of images they sought, their resource preferences, the factors used in image selection, their search techniques, how they incorporated images into their work processes and how images were used. While variation in the image behaviors across the four user groups were found, an overarching theme of frustration was discovered among all of the study’s participants. The reasons behind the frustration the image users experienced were also explored.%%%%Ph.D., Information Studies  – Drexel University, 2009

An Investigation of Image Users across Professions: A Framework of Their Image Needs, Retrieval and Use

The use of image libraries in the field of art and architectural history has been the subject of numerous research studies over the years. However, since previous investigations have focused, primarily, either on user behavior or reviewed repositories, our aim is to bring together both approaches. Against this background, this paper identifies the main characteristics of research and information behavior of art and architectural history scholars and students in the UK and Germany and presents a structured overview of currently available scholarly image libraries. Finally, the implications for a user-centered design of information resources and, in particular, image libraries are provided.

Image libraries and their scholarly use in the field of art and architectural history

Due to the ongoing digitization, digital libraries are used more and more by art and architectural historians. Nevertheless, the design of those platforms does not necessarily meet the expectations and user requirements of the scholars. This is especially valid for digital libraries dedicated to historic media such as photography. In this article, we aim to analyze the user community in a first step, in order to see from which fields of interest they come and how far developed their computer affinity is. In a second step, the user requirements of the scholars will be examined, specifically with regard to research questions of architectural history. Based upon those observations, in a third part a possible technical solution will be proposed that could facilitate the work with digital libraries as well as the research process. A case study on the question of the correlation between urban development and the perception of the city will give a further validation of the analytical parts, showing the deficits of yet existing digital libraries and highlighting starting points of further research support.

Creating Suitable Tools for Art and Architectural Research with Historic Media Repositories

The project “Virtual Museum of Design” explored the possible fruition modalities of a product having a high cultural content starting, on the one hand, from the analysis of the Design Museum concept, and the way this is interpreted in the different international experiences, and, on the other hand, of the Virtual Museum concept, leading to implementations very different from each others. This study has made evident interesting possibilities showing the potentiality of this approach on a limited number of museum items, narrated through the assistance of virtual models and their interactions with images, drawings, and multimedia materials.

A Virtual Museum for Design: New forms of interactive fruition

This study investigates the image behaviors of twenty-four participants in four separate user groups (six in each group: archaeologists, architects, art historians and artists). These groups of participants were chosen due to their heavy reliance on images to perform their daily work routines. Two of the image user groups, archaeologists and art historians, are expected to need images for pedagogical and research purposes while the two remaining groups, architects and artists, are believed to need images for inspiration and problem-solving aims. Additionally, the inclusion of these groups of image users will allow for an assessment of image users' behaviors by discipline and underlying needs. This study will identify the critical characteristics of users' image needs, retrieval and use and these characteristics, in turn, will be used to develop a theoretical model to explain users' image behaviors.

An investigation of image users across disciplines: A model of image needs, retrieval and use

Can museums and libraries profit from sharing their information, visual or textual? Is direct access to digital archives a more logical or economic way to develop access to images for teaching and research than assembling local collections? Recent digital image library projects in the United States, and their impact on the teaching practices of art and architectural historians, show the advantages of focusing on issues such as licensing and intellectual property, metadata and evolving cataloging practice, image quality, and the different costs of creation and delivery. But there are other potential benefits such as document delivery and the dissemination of archival information, as well as the preservation of fragile illustrated texts through digital imaging.

Digital image libraries and the teaching of art and architectural history

The Getty Art History Information Program has joined with MUSE Educational Media in a project bringing together seven universities and seven art museums for the purpose of making digital images of works of art available for study and teaching via campus networks. Beyond the immediate benefits to its participants, the project is designed to develop methods and guidelines for the academic use of digitized museum-owned materials at colleges and universities. Columbia University and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts are two of the participants in the project, which is remarkable for the level of collaboration which it is achieving between museums and universities.

The virtual museum comes to campus: two perspectives on the Museum Educational Site Licensing Project

Digital image collections in libraries and other curatorial institutions grow too rapidly to create new descriptive metadata for subject matter search or browsing. CLiMB (Computational Linguistics for Metadata Building) was a project designed to address this dilemma that involved computer scientists, linguists, librarians, and art librarians. The CLiMB project followed an iterative evaluation model: each next phase of the project emerged from the results of an evaluation. After assembling a suite of text processing tools to be used in extracting metada, we conducted a formative evaluation with thirteen participants, using a survey in which we varied the order and type of four conditions under which respondents would propose or select image search terms. Results of the formative evaluation led us to conclude that a CLiMB ToolKit would work best if its main function was to propose terms for users to review. After implementing a prototype ToolKit using a browser interface, we conducted an evaluation with ten experts. Users found the ToolKit very habitable, remained consistently satisfied throughout a lengthy evaluation, and selected a large number of terms per image.

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CLiMB ToolKit: A Case Study of Iterative Evaluation in a Multidisciplinary Project

Texto correspondiente a la reseña del libro "Matilde Ucelay. Espainiako lehen emakume arkitektoa. La primera arquitecta española. The First Spanish Woman Architect", publicado en 2021 por el Instituto de Arquitectura de Euskadi (Euskadiko Arkitektura Instituta). El artículo analiza esta edición trilingüe en español, euskera e inglés, que recoge tanto la biografía personal como la profesional de la primera mujer titulada en arquitectura en España.

Inés Sánchez de Madariaga: «Matilde Ucelay. Espainiako lehen emakume arkitektoa. La primera arquitecta española. The First Spanish Woman Architect». Euskadiko Arkitektura Instituta. Instituto de Arquitectura de Euskadi, 2021, 227 págs.

Through the last decade the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP), recently renamed the Getty Information Institute, has been subsidising end-user online access to scholarly research databases. A study of subsidised access to Dialog databases provided to Getty Centre resident scholars has been reported by Marcia Bates, who found that searching patterns in humanities research differ substantially from those previously investigated in science and the social sciences. The cost of collecting research information and of making it available greatly exceeds revenues generated from its use; inability to measure use is an obstacle to justifying maintenance of subsidies at present levels. Key factors to be considered in assessing the relative value of different models of information provision include information quality, number of accesses, royalties received, user charges, producer subsidy, and user input. Analysis suggests that the non-profit method provides the best mode of access and supports the decision of AHIP to work in partnership with the Research Libraries Group.

Angela Giral

Papers

Digital image libraries and the teaching of art and architectural history

The virtual museum comes to campus: two perspectives on the Museum Educational Site Licensing Project

CLiMB ToolKit: A Case Study of Iterative Evaluation in a Multidisciplinary Project

Inés Sánchez de Madariaga: «Matilde Ucelay. Espainiako lehen emakume arkitektoa. La primera arquitecta española. The First Spanish Woman Architect». Euskadiko Arkitektura Instituta. Instituto de Arquitectura de Euskadi, 2021, 227 págs.

Subsidising end-user access to research databases: From Card File to the World Wide Web