Visual Materials and Online Access: Issues Concerning Content Representation

Beaudoin, Joan E.

doi:10.1086/adx.26.2.27949466

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The variety in interest and search practices among external users of image collections are likewise extensively researched. However, with a focus on accessibility, these studies have primarily been concerned with different vocabularies and search methods and what has been labelled "the semantic gap" between different parties in the field (Eakins 2002;Hollink et al 2004;Beaudoin 2007). They typically do not investigate images as images, in the sense of mediated, mediating, and "mixed" media objects that are simultaneously showing and telling, representing the past and the present.…”

Section: Journal Of Current Cultural Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing Images

Petersson

Dahlgren²

2022

Cult. Unbound

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In the cultural heritage digital archive, descriptive metadata makes images (re)searchable. Text-based searches seek terms that match metadata terms or terms referring to aspects of images that have previously been considered essential to select and describe in metadata terms. Such considerations are bound up with historically changing institutional agendas, ideas about user preferences, and implementation of metadata standards. This study approaches image accessibility from a different perspective. It aims to investigate how the infrastructure of the digital archive, comprising metadata and interface, intervenes with, circumscribes as well as enables, the images’ visibility and knowledge-producing capacity. The starting points are: first, that images in digital archives, exemplified by the online image collections in Alvin and DigitaltMuseum, are mediated, mediating, and “mixed” media objects that simultaneously represent the past and the present; second, that the digital archive in a media history of images functions as both a tool and an object of research. Using the platforms as tools of research, this study is based on test searches that aim to find viable search strategies for mixed media objects. The chosen search terms represent media-historically significant and common traits such as images that are combined with text and images that represent and/or mediate other images. The study discloses that the platforms give both false negatives and false positives. They do not support searches that focus media terms and relations between media elements. These problems are further related both to heterogenous metadata practices and to the simultaneously restricted and broad image concept behind them. As objects of research, both platforms are considered in relation to a future construction of a media history of images, where the digital archive is a particular node. The study demonstrates how the “hypermedial” environment associated with new media is prefigured by media interrelations in analog images – or images that are accessible as mediated through the archive’s interface and as policed by the archive’s metadata structure.

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Section: Journal Of Current Cultural Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing Images

Petersson

Dahlgren²

2022

Cult. Unbound

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“…The majority of information objects within the museum environment are not digitized because they have only recently begun making their collections available beyond the traditional brick-and-mortar walls. Furthermore, museum professionals continue to resist the adoption of controlled vocabularies due to their inability to adequately describe objects held within their institutions (Beaudoin 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Comparison of Descriptive Tagging Practices by Library, Archive, and Museum Professionals using an Inter-Indexing Consistency Approach

Angel

2013

NASKO

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This study is a comparison of the descriptive tagging practices among library, archive, and museum professionals using an inter-indexing consistency approach. The first purpose of this study was to determine the extent of the similarities and differences among professional groups when assigning descriptive tags to different object types typically found within the library, archive and museum environments. The second purpose of this study was to compare the descriptive practices of these three professional groups to different object types typically found within the library, archive and museum environments. Findings from this study indicate while there were few differences in depth of indexing per object type among professional groups, various levels of description were applied to the different object types. Levels of description were derived from: (1) the three dimensional or physical media pictured; (2) the digital surrogate; (3) the objects aboutness; (4) the technique and materials used to make the physical object, and; (5) written text. Data analysis also indicates there was a significant difference between means in the total number of exact matched primary tags applied per object type. As such, information retrieval within the online environment could be improved if there was better quality control in the application of the different levels of description among information professionals.

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“…Much of the research into the intellectual access to images has focused on identifying and examining the useful conceptual access points for images (Jörgensen & Jörgensen, 2005; Cunningham, Bainbridge, & Masoodian, 2004; Jörgensen, 2003; Frost et al, 2000; Jörgensen, 1998; Armitage & Enser, 1993; Roberts, 1985; Bradfield, 1976) and how these may vary according to context or user group (Chen, 2007; Armitage & Enser, 1997; Ornager, 1995). Other work has concerned the challenges surrounding providing intellectual access to images (Chen, 2007; Beaudoin, 2007; Attig, Copeland & Pelikan, 2004; Grout et al, 2000; Bradfield, 1976). Relevance, how users assess and select images to meet their needs, has been examined in several studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Beaudoin

2008

Proc of Assoc for Info

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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. IntroductionImages, visual representations of the world and ideas around us, have become a pervasive presence in the 21 st century. Technological advances in the past two decades and the growth of the Internet have accelerated the amount of visual materials available to us and increased our access to images. Although there has been great deal of enthusiasm for the entry of images into the digital realm, research into image users' behaviors has not seen an equal level of support. This is not a surprising situation given that visual materials have traditionally played a secondary role behind that of the printed word (Turner, 1993;Stafford, 1996). For the individuals within four user groups in this study (archaeologists, architects, art historians and artists) images are critical components in the performance of their daily work routines. The needs underlying their image seeking efforts, their image retrieval methods and assessment practices and the ultimate use of the images they find form the core of this study. BackgroundThe user groups under investigation in this study are understood to have a high need for images in their daily work routines. While several studies have looked into the topic of how critical images are as resources to the disciplines under scrutiny here (Pisciotta et al., 2005;Challener, 1999;Giral, 1998;Sklar, 1995;Busch, 1994; Childlow, 1991;Gould, 1988), published studies which focus specifically on the suite of image behaviors of the current study's populations are rare. Bradfield (1976) provides the most comprehensive treatment of the subject in his investigation of image collections within institutions of higher education in England. This study examined a variety of aspects such as the subject breadth and image quality needed in collections to support image users, the time users spent finding images and the affective characteristics which influenced users' decisions to use an image collection. Even here, however, image users' behaviors were discussed generally as a means to evaluate the organization and retrieval of information from analog image collections and not as a topic for direct investig...

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Visual Materials and Online Access: Issues Concerning Content Representation

Cited by 6 publications

References 19 publications

Seeing Images

Seeing Images

A Comparison of Descriptive Tagging Practices by Library, Archive, and Museum Professionals using an Inter-Indexing Consistency Approach

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

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