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Dodo, lame duck or phoenix? How should we view the slide library?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Jenny Godfrey
Jenny Godfrey*
Affiliation:
Visual Resources, Library & Information Services, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Howard Gardens Campus, Cardiff CF24 0SP
*
Email: jgodfrey@cardiffmet.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article looks at what uses a slide collection developed for teaching art and design history to students in art schools in the UK could possibly still have now that lecture theatres have ‘gone digital’. As more and more slide collections are disposed of, part 2 of the article (to be published in ALJ 39.4) also asks UK librarians to consider preserving at least one exemplar slide library for the benefit of researchers in the future.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , 2014, pp. 28 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 2014

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References

1. VRA-L. VRA website http://www.vraweb.org/about/index.html. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. VRA-L is the mailing Ust for the Visual Resources Association (VRA), ‘a multi-discipUnary, international (mainly American) professional organization dedicated to furthering research and education in the field of media management within the educational, cultural heritage, and commercial environments’. Frequent posts on VRA-L regarding the demise of slide libraries led to a special issue of VRA Bulletin on the subject of slide Libraries: VRA Bulletin 39, no. 3 (2012), available online at http://online.vraweb.org/vrab/vol39/iss3/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. ACADI blog. ACADI website http://acadi.wordpress.com/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. ACADI ‘promotes the status of visual resources curators and aims to highlight the importance of image collections within education’. The group operates in the UK. Google Scholar
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4. Weidner, , Dying technologies, in the ‘Digitisation’ section table indicating the likely duration of various image making technologies. For another reminder that format change is constant see Cornell University Library’s digital preservation tutorial which has a time-line of obsolete media formats, called the Chamber of Horrors showing how rapidly new technologies are created and cast aside. http://www.dpworkshop.org/dpm-eng/oldmedia/index.html. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014.Google Scholar
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6. Godfrey, Jenny. “The DACS slide Collection Licensing Scheme” Art libraries journal 26, no. 4 (2001): 10–17. See article for report, DACS offered slide Libraries in the UK a copyright indemnity licence to make slides. ACADI blog. http://acadi.wordpress.com/ especially blog entry for April 4th 2011. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. Hopes for a similar scheme to allow digital images to be made from copyright works never materialized despite frequent lobbying from ACADI. Google Scholar
7. ARTstor Digital Library, http://www.artstor.org/what-is-artstor/w-httml/artstor-overview.shtml. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. ARTstor is a non-profit resource that provides over 1.5 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research. UK subscribers to ARTstor currendy number 30. Google Scholar
8. University of Colorado Boulder Department of Art & Art History. Slide deaccessioning. http://cuart.colorado.edu/resources/vrc/vrc-news/slide-deaccessioning. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. For an example of weeding with reference to ARTstor holdings. Kyle Robertson VRC Package. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWAK636g7yE. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. A video describing a weeded and scanned slide collection used in conjunction with Artstor at Ithaca College. Google Scholar
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13. Susan Skingle (curator) “Into obscurity: exhibiting the slide collection”, handout available at the exhibition, London Metropolitan University, 30 May-28 June 2013. https://metropolitanization/services/sas/Ubraiy-services/commercial/exhibitions-commercial-road-ilrc/exhibitions/libraiy-collection-displays/into-obscurity-exhibiting-the-slide-collection.cfin. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014.Google Scholar
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16. Some references to artists who have worked in this area include: Mark Dion. “The stuff the museum’s made of: artist Mark Dion gives a slide lecture on our taxidermy heritage” in NaturePlus blog, 9th May 2011. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/blogs/whats-new/2011/05/09/the-stuff-the-museums-made-of-artist-mark-dion-gives-a-slide-lecture-on-our- taxidermy-heritage. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. Google Scholar
Ferm, Ulrika False, Huber, William E, Jones, Uschi, Janka, Jörg Paul, Broomberg, Adam, et al. “Working with archives,” Source 70 (Spring 2012): 38–43. Glasgow School of Art library. “Archives and libraries in creative practice” http://www2.gsa.ac.uk/Hbrary/finding_aids/bibliography-Hbraries-archives.pdf. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. An online bibliography ‘(that) lists publications in which creative practitioners have engaged with the concepts of’the archive’ or ‘the library’ and their educai and ideological implications.’ Karen Fletcher. ‘Doubles, duplicity and duplication’ in ACADI blog, 12 July 2013. http://acadi.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/doubles-duplicity-and-duphcations-installation/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. A slide installation by Caroline Evans and Alistair O’Neillat Central St Martins School of Art, Spring 2013, documented in the ACADI blog. Google Scholar
17. Randi Millman Brown. “Visual resource collection creates artistic method to dispose of out-dated film slides” Ithaca week http://www.ithacaweek-ic.com/visual-resource-collection-creates-artistic-memod-to-dispose-of-out-dated-film-slides. Accessed 10 Feb. 2014. Documents the ‘From Resources to art’ initiative at Idrica College.Google Scholar