Finding Visual Information: A Study of Image Resources Used by Archaeologists, Architects, Art Historians, and Artists

Abstract

This article presents the findings of a recent study which identified the image resources that professional user groups acknowledged were useful to their work processes. The information behaviors relating to images of several professional user groups -archaeologists, architects, art historians, and artists -were examined in a qualitative research study conducted in [2008][2009]. Presented here are findings that clarify where these patrons turned for their visual information needs and what factors influenced their image resource decisions. The final section provides suggestions to improve the image-related experiences of these user groups and discusses avenues for future research.

Digital Cultural Heritage Meets Digital Humanities

“…Despite various attempts (Alvarado, 2011;Carter, 2013;Gold, 2012;Kirschenbaum, 2010;Terras et al, 2013), the definition of digital humanities is still blurred and heterogeneous (Alvarado, 2011;Gibbs, 2011), and there is still controversy about the use of digital methods. That comprises the questions whether digital humanities are "worthy of an academic department" by means of a sufficient level of academic rigor (Terras, 2006a, p. 230), whether an object of research is limited to digitally supported research methods or dealing with all aspects of digitally supported scholarship (Beaudoin, 2009;Beaudoin and Brady, 2011;Hersey et al, 2015;Kemman et al, 2014;Long and Schonfeld, 2014;Stam, 1997;Unsworth, 2000;Zorich, 2012) and finally, what are unique research benefits. Concerning that latter aspect and from the perspective of humanities research, especially novel qualities and opportunities for pattern recognition, easy scalability and editing of information are mentioned (Bodenhamer et al, 2010b;Ch'ng et al, 2013;Moretti, 2007;Münster, 2016).…”

Urban History in 4 Dimensions – Supporting Research and Education

“…The new scale of research and information retrieval creates various new challenges. Many scholars note that online searching for images and information is "counter-productive" due to the amount of irrelevant data retrieved or their limited technical abilities (Beaudoin and Brady, 2011). The degree of search expertise certainly influences research progress and results (Kemman et al, 2012), as does the implementation of suitable filtering and handling tools.…”

Visual representation of information as communicative practice

“…A majority of information science research focusing on images can be characterized as having (a) a primary focus on the artifact in order to identify keywords and standardized descriptors, essentially converting the image to a text-based schema (Datta, Joshi, Li, & Wang, 2008), or (b) a primary focus on system building as in the case of much information visualization and image retrieval systems research, where issues related to user behavior are often explored in relation to system evaluation (Ellis & Dix, 2006). Close examination of image-enabled information behaviors is not typically the primary goal of image research in information science, although there are some recent exceptions (e.g., Beaudoin & Brady, 2011;Makri & Warwick, 2010;McCay-Peet & Toms, 2009;Yoon & Chung, 2011). Ellis and Dix (2006) conducted an analysis of user studies of visualization systems to understand better why user-based evaluations of these systems were "so difficult."…”