ARLIS/TXMX - News: Visual Resources

News: VRA Texas meets during CAA 2008 in Dallas

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:58:23 -0400

The Texas chapter of the Visual Resources Association met February 21-22, 2008 to coincide with the annual meeting of the College Art Association in Dallas.

Thursday's activities took place on the campus of Southern Methodist University and included a presentation on XML, an Ask-the-Export roundtable, and business meeting. Friday's agenda featured a CCO metadata workshop, hosted at the Dallas Museum of Art. The CCO workshop was generously co-sponsored by the Visual Resources Association, the Texas-Mexico chapter of the Art Libraries Society of North America, and Archivision, Inc.

News: Visual Resources

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:30:24 -0400

VRA Texas Fall Meeting, Dallas, October 2007; Chapter Update

The Visual Resources Association's Texas Chapter met on October 29, 2007 in Dallas, at the Hamon Arts Library, Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University.

Although held at the same time as the Annual Meeting of the 2007 ARLIS/NA Texas-Mexico Chapter, it was not possible to schedule a joint meeting. However, since the most important purpose of the VRA Texas meeting was to decide whether or not the chapter would continue as a formal entity, it was decided just to focus on a business meeting this time and plan for future joint educational programs with the ARLIS/NA Texas-Mexico chapter.

News: Texas VR curators form first purchasing consortium with Archivision Digital Library

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:33:39 -0400

Efforts to negotiate Texas purchasing consortiums with digital image vendors have been ongoing over the past few months. With the blessings of 17 visual resources curators in the state, I made contact with the vendors on our behalf. Negotiations with Scholars Resource is ongoing, but I am pleased to report that a discount group has been formed with Archivision, Inc., a major vendor of architectural digital images. This agreement allows all Texas universities, colleges, community colleges, museums, and secondary schools to license the Archivision Digital Photo Research Library (currently over 29,000 images) at a huge discount over individual purchases through Scholars Resource. Schools will automatically receive the discount when ordering the entire archive from Archivision. The Texas Discount Buying Group is the first state discount group for Archivision and will become their model for other states and provinces.

News: Visual Resources

Tue, 29 May 2007 19:20:24 -0400

Mark Pompelia has volunteered to be part of a steering committee to revive the dormant Texas chapter of the Visual Resources Association. This will involve reviewing the chapter bylaws, officer recruitment for fall elections, and exploring a joint meeting with ARLIS/NA Texas-Mexico this coming fall.

Elizabeth Schaub participated in the seminar titled Are We Speaking the Same Language? Communication Strategies for the Visual Resources Professional at the Visual Resources Association’s annual conference in Kansas City, Missouri (March 27-31, 2007). Elizabeth’s presentation fo

News: Rice VRC Featured in Rice News

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 10:54:51 -0500

In the October 12 issue of Rice News: The Faculty & Staff Newspaper of Rice University, the University’s Visual Resources Center, directed by member Mark Pompelia, was featured in the article “Art History’s Visual Resources Center Offers Bounty of Images.” Quoting from the article:

Mark Pompelia, director of the Visual Resources Center, said that even though the collection was born from the needs of art history professors, it is an encompassing anthology of images that is open to Rice faculty and students for use in courses and projects.

“We like to say that we are a local department resource with university-wide ambitions,” Pompelia said.

News: UT School of Architecture and ARTstor Collaboration

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 11:33:52 -0500

Observatory, Chichén Itzá, Mexico, 700-1200 C.E.

Collaborative Agreement Reached Between the School of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin, and ARTstor

ARTstor and the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin are pleased to announce that they will collaborate to digitize and distribute approximately 9,000 images from the Hal Box and Logan Wagner Collection of Mexican Architecture and Urban Design Images. These images richly document outdoor communal spaces in Mexico, focusing on both Pre-Columbian sites and 16th-17th century Colonial sites.

News: Elizabeth Schaub Appointed South Regional Representative

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 10:29:15 -0500

Laura Schwartz, Chair of the ARLIS/NA Nominating Committee, announced to the Society in November that Elizabeth Schaub will be serving as ARLIS/NA South Regional Representative, following in the footsteps of Heather Ball. Schaub's tenure on the Executive Board will begin in April 2007 at ARLIS/NA's annual conference in Atlanta; she will hold the position for two years. As South Regional Representative, Schaub will represent the following chapters: ARLIS/NA DC/Maryland/Virginia, ARLIS/NA Southeast, and ARLIS/NA Texas-Mexico. Her primary duties are to act as liaison betw

News: Renewed Interest in Forming VRA Texas Chapter

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 16:32:16 -0400

Mark Pompelia, new Curator of Visual Resources at Rice University, reports that there is renewed interest in forming an official VRA Texas chapter. At an informal meeting in May, a steering committee of Houston-area visual resources curators was established. At that meeting it was decided that an organizational meeting would be held in early June, leading to the establishment of an official chapter in early Fall. The VRA Lone Star Chapter will hold its first chapter meeting in conjunction with ARLIS/Texas-Mexico this October in Houston.

News: Great Plains Image Bank Consortium

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:29:00 -0400

Visual resources people from Big 12 architecture schools met in Boulder, CO, May 24th -26th, to plan to create a shared online database of architectural images. Visual resources curators from different schools demonstrated the digital image databases they had created for their schools: Lynn Lickteig of the University of Colorado, Susan Moshman of the University of Nebraska, Michael Millar and Susan Poague of Iowa State University, and Jeff Head of Kansas State University all demonstrated their respective databases.

The next morning began with a video conference with Georgia Harper of the University of Texas at Austin, a specialist on copy issues. Several lawyers and University of Colorado faculty members also attended the session. In the afternoon, attendees met with Charly Bauer of OhioLINK, who discussed the image database that OhioLINK had created for the use of the 70 colleges and universities in Ohio, covering the intended usage, copyright issues, the technical aspects, and security concerns, among other topics.

News: From Dallas/Ft. Worth Visual Resources Professionals

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:11:47 -0400

NEWS FROM DALLAS/FT. WORTH VISUAL RESOURCES PROFESSIONALS

The Dallas Museum of Art was the site of the first organized meeting of the Dallas/Fort Worth area visual resources professionals. The meeting, organized by Rita Lasater, was attended by visual resource curators and managers from area universities and museums. Represented were the DMA, the Kimbell Art Museum, Southern Methodist University, University of Texas at Arlington, Texas Christian University, and the University of North Texas.

Detailed information about professional organizations, ARLIS and VRA, began the conference. Jacqui Allen, Head of Libraries at the DMA and Vice President/President Elect of ARLIS/TX informed the group of the upcoming ARLIS/TX meeting in Ft. Worth, and invited all to attend. Eileen Coffman, Director of Visual Resources at SMU's Lady Tennyson d'Eyncourt Slide Library, presented the opportunity for the group to consider organizing a VRA chapter for the state or area.

News: Visual Resource Professionals are Getting Together!

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:10:35 -0400

The Dallas and Houston area visual resources professionals have been meeting in their respective cities and talking about forming a chapter of the Visual Resources Association. There seems to be an interest in making the chapter happen, but there are still many concerns about taking on the responsibilities of being officers in addition to everyday professional duties. Jacqui Allen at the Dallas Museum of Art and Marty Stein at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston have issued an invitation to both groups to form an alliance with ARLIS/Texas. As discussed at the last two chapter meetings, this alliance would provide the VRA/Lone Star Chapter to contribute to The Medium, making The Medium the newsletter for both chapters. In addition, both chapters would meet together to alleviate the necessity for separate chapter meetings. This alliance would benefit both professional communities. Many of the issues concerning the art library community are also of concern to the visual resources professionals. Just a few of these issues include the broad use of electronic means of disseminating materials, especially images and information pertinent to them; issues of copyright and intellectual property; site licensing and its associated costs; and, not least, the general interest in fine arts in Texas. This alliance would also bring more readers and contributors to The Medium, helping to make it an even better resource for the art library and visual resources community.

News: VRA Conference Report

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 19:50:26 -0400

The 17th Annual Visual Resources Conference was held February 9-13, 1999 in Los Angeles. Highlights of the Conference included a day trip to the new Getty Center, where participants were able to tour the various buildings, the Information Institute, and the Slide Library. Strong winds had cleared out the clouds and smog, and the view was incredible in all directions. Georgia Harper, legal counsel for the University of Texas System, provided valuable insights and instruction on copyright issues during an afternoon session at the Getty. The following evening the ever-popular Tansey Travel Award Fundraising dinner was held at Ciao Trattoria, and Luraine Tansey entertained the large gathering with stories of her many trips abroad. Closing out the week was a trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to view the Van Gogh exhibition and attend an open house in the Slide Library, hosted by Naomi Weiss.

News: Katherine O'Dell Member Update

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 12:34:47 -0400

After receiving her MSIS from the University of Texas at Austin, Katherine O'Dell accepted the position of solo Visual Resources Librarian at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. In a small, liberal arts environment, she provides support for the Art and Art History department within the Sarofim School of Fine Arts.

News: UT Austin's Art & Art History Visual Resources Collection Joins Digital Archive Services

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 12:24:20 -0400

The Visual Resource Collection in the Art & Art History Department has joined the Digital Archive Services (DASE) of the University of Texas at Austin. DASE is a joint effort of Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, and the General Libraries. It consists of a set of applications for the collection, cataloging, and serving of digital media collections from all over the university.

In the future, the DASE Media Browser will give faculty and students the ability to search diverse collections of images, videos, audio files, and other media. Currently ten image collections have been uploaded (approaching 50,000 images). They are accessible and can be used for classroom instruction. Full-search capability is restricted to individuals via electronic identification (UTEID).