June 2009

When I first began delving into online access to images, I focused on copyright and other practical issues.  Ultimately my interest turned to the actual retrieval of images.  I read a lot online, including journal articles and books.  Gradually I began to get the lay of the land and learned the lingo.  It was quite a while before I discovered Introduction to Art Image Access, edited by Murtha Baca, but when I did I knew that this was the place I should have started.

Having come from searching inside the forest it was a revelation.  I don’t regret my path, having a penchant for doing things the hard way and for the search itself.  But for anyone curious about the subject this is where I would suggest starting.  It is a clear, consise, and comprehensive introduction to the “subject of images” in the context of providing access to the images.   This online publication, which is also available in print, “addresses the issues that underlie the intellectual process of documenting a visual collection to make it accessible in an electronic environment” and is one of several Data Standards and Guidelines the Getty makes available for free.

It consists of four main essays: Subject Access to Art Images, The Language of Images, It Begins with the Cataloguer, and  The Image User and the Search for Images.   It also contains an annotated List of Tools, a Glossary, and a Selected Bibliography.  Each of the essays is illustrated with a number of images which are integral to the text.  These concrete examples of the concepts described are one of strongest points of the book.    Each essay is under 15 pages and is packed with valuable information.  Each subsection, and even, on occasion, each paragraph makes assertions or poses questions that could provide the basis for a full college course.

Together these essays provide a kind of blueprint for navigating the world of digital image management at the back end with the front end in mind.   It is aimed at a wide range of visual resources professionals.   Anyone who goes on to become an art historian, curator or cataloger will end up delving deeply into many of the topics mentioned here.

What can one take away from this set of essays?  Here are a handful of what I deem to be the most important points with respect to subject matter analysis, with full credit to the author, and apologies for any simplification:

• Images are are always of a specific instance of something.  This characteristic of images makes it particularly important to provide access to a subject of an image at as many points as possible within the range of terms that can describe or identify that subject.
• That subjects includes activities, events, persons, objects, place and time.
• The difference between description and identification.
• Subject can be described using a continuum of terms from the broadly generic to the relatively specific.
• The difference between ofness and aboutness
• That about-ness can be seen as an essential element of subject analysis of some art.
• That about-ness may be more tenuous, less clear, and perhaps even an unnecessary element of subject analysis.
• Index anything that is clearly depicted
• Index anything that is not clearly depicted if the mere fact of its presence in the image is informative
• Do not index parts of a whole if the whole is indexed and the parts are implicit in it.
• Whenever a work of art is about a literary work, provide access through the name of that literary work.
• That an art image may be not only a work of art itself but also an image of another work of art.
• Using consistent vocabulary promotes recall of relevant images; providing the means for organizing the retrieval based on category promotes precision.
• Categories can be differentiated from one another by placing them in different fields in a database record or otherwise identifying them as different metadata elements.
• The depth of subject analysis depends on the knowledge of the indexer .
• The goals or focus of a particular institution can also affect depth of indexing.
• Use controlled vocabularies, guidelines for subject analysis, and even checklists or picklists of possible subject aspects.
• Use a vocabulary with a syndetic structure that provides good links from the broadest to the narrowest terms, links that lead from the generic to the specific, like thesauri.
• Any given image may be of interest to different disciplines with different vocabularies.
• The ultimate goal is retrieval.

The Getty Standards and Digital Resource Management Program

Introduction to Art Image Access is only one of several valuable tools that the Getty makes available for the benefit of the entire field.  Here’s how they describe this aspect of their operations and their other publications.

The Getty Standards and Digital Resource Management Program works to enhance access to information on the visual arts and related disciplines by promoting standards and practices and developing tools and guidelines for developing, managing, preserving, and delivering information in electronic form. The complete Data Standards and Guidelines list and description from the Getty site follows.

Categories for the Description of Works of Art
Guidelines for the description of art objects and images, including a discussion of issues involved in building art information systems.

A Guide to the Description of Architectural Drawings
Guidelines, conventions, and standards for describing architectural drawings and documents, with examples and recommendations for authority files and controlled vocabularies.

Introduction to Archival Organization and Description
An introduction to the principles of organization and description used in archives and archival collections.

Introduction to Art Image Access
An online publication that addresses the issues that underlie the intellectual process of documenting a visual collection to make it accessible in an electronic environment.

Introduction to Imaging (Revised Edition)
An online publication that introduces the technology of digital imaging and creating an image library.

Introduction to Metadata (revised edition 3.0)
An online publication devoted to metadata, its types and uses, and how it can improve access to digital resources.

Metadata Standards Crosswalk
A mapping of elements from different metadata schemas to facilitate semantic interoperability and cross-repository searching.

Introduction to Vocabularies
An overview of thesauri and other structured vocabularies used to provide access to art and material culture information.

Digitized Library Collections
Groupings of records, most linked to images, representing objects from the special collections of the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute, accompanied by contextual and historical information.

Here is the place to start your studies if this stuff turns you on.

Tagged as: "subject matter cataloging", aboutness, Art, Art history, controlled vocabulary, Getty Images, Literature, Metadata, ofness, Visual Arts, Work of art

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