[Insightl] ArtSTOR interoperability

[David Lower]

Thank you, Stephen, for raising dialogue about using both Insight and
ARTstor.  I might offer an even stronger differentiation between your choice
#2, which is the way ARTstor positioned itself in sales presentations until
this year, and #'s 3 and 5, which are what I might put in the category of
"almost, but not quite bearable".  

I agree with Susan, that the user experience must be considered as primary.
Though there may be some nifty political or contractual maneuvering that
could be done to find some compromise alternative, anything short of a
single access point for digital media (in Insight) will only confuse and
discourage use of the technology.  

The context as we see it is this: many faculty here at Emory have been happy
and comfortable using slides, so any digital alternative to traditional
methods must offer real benefits that outweigh the cost/labor of transition.
In my opinion, learning two different software systems makes this cost too
great (not to mention the licensing costs!) for any benefit to justify it.

Please let us know how we can participate in some form of community action
on this matter.

David Lower
Emory ITD

-----Original Message-----
From: insightl-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
[mailto:insightl-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Susan Jane Williams
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 9:21 AM
To: Stephen Paul Davis; insightl at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Insightl] ArtSTOR interoperability

I'm glad Stephen has raised this, and in such a cogent manner. I agree with
him about choices 2, 3, and 5. What we must not loose sight of, and what we
must remind both Luna and ARTStor about, is the user habits of those faculty
we serve _today_. Working in a digital environment will surely change work
habits and searching and discovery in the future, but for now many of us
encounter frustrated faculty who thought (mistakenly at this stage) that
working digitally was going to be faster and easier (no matter what we may
have told them up front). The primary goal for many of them is not
serendipitous discovery of something new, but a way to gather their
accustomed materials together and use in an easy interface. The moment any
scenario has them using more than one interface it becomes problematic. I do
think this will change and I do think as these systems mature, broader
searching and more adventurous use will be a benefit. However we must
satisfy what the faculty need and want (and are able to use) today, not what
we think they should want. 
Cheers
Susan

Susan Jane Williams
Cornell




-----Original Message-----

> Date: Mon Jul 26 15:42:23 EDT 2004
> From: "Stephen Paul Davis" <daviss at columbia.edu>
> Subject: [Insightl] ArtSTOR interoperability
> To: insightl at mailman.yale.edu
>
> 
> 
> Insight-Folks:
> My understanding from the folks at ArtSTOR is that they are currently
> trying to define what they might be able to 'expose' externally for
> metasearching and also what they might allow to be harvested for local
> use. Since these issues are clearly of interest to a number of
> potential Insight/ArtSTOR customers, including Columbia, I'm wondering if
> we couldn't start a bit of discussion here about what we would in fact
> want under those scenarios. 
> I don't know how far others have already gone in terms of defining their
> requirements in this area or in direct discussions / negotiations with
> ArtSTOR about this. If some Insight customers have already
> made proposals along these lines, perhaps they would share with the
> list? In any event, let me take a quick stab to see if there's any
> consensus about what Insight customers' options and preferences might
> be.
> Here's a starter set of theoretically possible ArtSTOR access options for
> Luna Insight customers:
> 1) Local
> loading of both ArtSTOR images and metadata in local Insight
> systems
> 2) Local
> access to remote ArtSTOR-in-Insight collections via the Insight interface
> (as e.g., AMICO has been available)
> 3) Local
> access to locally or remotely-stored ArtSTOR-in-Insight metadata and
> thumbnail images (only), with the capability of linking directly from the
> thumbnail to the full-size version in the native ArtSTOR-in-ArtSTOR
> interface.
> 4)
> Metasearching by authorized institutions or service providers via
> software such as Metalib or Encompass for Resource
> Collections, using either HTTP, XML, or Z39.50
> 5)
> Harvesting of ArtSTOR metadata and thumbnails via OAI-PMH by authorized
> institutions or service providers (if feasible, using a metadata standard
> more appropriate to art images than Dublin Core), with the ability to
> link through directly to the images in the native ArtSTOR 
> interface.
> ---
> These non-mutually-exclusive approaches would of course differ
> significantly in their difficulty  complexity and in the level of
> service provided to end-users.
> I would venture that Columbia's and many others' preference would be #2,
> with #3 an acceptable alternative. In addition, we feel that #5 is
> also of great potential benefit given that there will always be image
> collections that are not going to be available via Insight and that at
> least some campuses (and perhaps other service providers 
> organizations) will want to offer their communities as complete a
> discovery tool for images as possible.
> So, let's pretend you suddenly had enough money to subscribe to ArtSTOR
> or in fact have already scraped it together -- how would you prefer
> to access ArtSTOR's collections? Any other thoughts,
> suggestions?/Stephen
> 
> ______________________________
> Stephen Paul
> Davis
> 
> Director, Libraries Digital Program
> 207A Butler Library
> Columbia University
> 535 W. 114th Street
> New York, NY 10027
> email: daviss at columbia.edu
> phone: (212) 854-8584
> fax: (212) 854-0089
> ______________________________
> 
>

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