November 22, 2005
The best streets are two-way streets. ARTstor is now available at a
growing number of independent art schools, and we are pleased to
announce that our friends at these institutions are now actively
helping us build ARTstor�s expanding collection of contemporary art
images. A wonderful case in point is Allan Kohl, the Visual Resources
Curator at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). Allan is
a longtime supporter of ARTstor, and he has recently taken the lead in
helping to make images of work by MCAD faculty artists available in
the ARTstor Digital Library. In pursuing this goal, Allan has actively
engaged the interest of faculty artists, prepared images for
submission to ARTstor, compiled and assembled metadata for these
images, and documented relevant rights and permissions. We welcome
this opportunity to thank Allan and his MCAD colleagues, and to
encourage staff and faculty at other art schools to follow their
example. ARTstor staff have learned a great deal from this
partnership, and are already working to make this process as simple as
possible for other potential art school partners. Here is an excerpt
from Allan Kohl�s own account of his efforts and experience at MCAD.
I initially approached several of our faculty artists for possible
participation, reminding each of them about the significance of
ARTstor and its desire to include more images of contemporary art
works. All expressed interest and willingness to participate, and
three (David Goldes, Michael Kareken and David Rich) have now
provided content. These three artists submitted works in a variety
of media: one is a painter; one a draughtsman/printmaker; one a
photographer. Each has a national exhibition presence � work by
David Goldes, for instance, has been featured in the photography
journals Blind Spot and European Photography, and in a recent solo
show at Manhattan�s Yossi Milo Gallery�. To get started, I
requested a copy of ARTstor�s imaging standards, and gave each
faculty artist a copy. The majority of images they submitted were
in the form of 35mm. slides, which I scanned. All of these images
were prepared as large format TIFF files and given consistent file
names. The files were edited in Photoshop for orientation,
cropping and tonal balance. Images of the painter�s works were
color corrected in consultation with the artist. The resulting
files were burned to DVD discs (one per artist) and sent to
ARTstor�. I use FilemakerPro as my standard cataloging software,
and know from previous submissions to ARTstor that ARTstor staff
are able to work with these files. I developed a fielded Filemaker
cataloging record template and submitted this for approval by
ARTstor metadata staff. This template defined the information
fields I would need to ask the artists to provide, and I gave each
one of them a copy of a blank record as a reminder�. The
information arrived in small batches, and in different formats.
With one artist, I transcribed information from slide labels,
augmented by a short interview to fill in the remaining blanks.
One artist provided a word processed checklist. Another brought me
an illustrated catalog from a recent exhibition. I compiled the
cataloging records from these multiple information sources using
the Filemaker template, and included these records on each DVD
disc along with the related image files. ARTstor worked out a
standard licensing agreement for me to use, and I worked with each
artist to make sure that he completed his form. One artist had
reservations about a specific passage in the agreement, and we
worked with the ARTstor legal staff to arrive at a formulation
acceptable to all concerned. The completed and signed agreements
were forwarded to ARTstor along with the discs containing the
image files and cataloging information.
We are most appreciative of Allan�s generous efforts on behalf of
ARTstor and its users, and grateful to his faculty artist colleagues
for their interest. These contemporary art images have now been
integrated into the ARTstor Image Gallery and its browsing taxonomy.
You may search for these images under the artists� names (David
Goldes, Michael Kareken and David Rich). We want also to acknlowledge
Allan�s contribution of other collections to the ARTstor Digital
Library. Thanks to Allan, the following materials are also now
available in ARTstor.
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* Historic American sheet music covers *
These images of sheet music covers from the late 19th and early 20th
centuries (1898-1923) have been scanned from examples drawn from
several private collections including the Gertrude Goodrich Battles
Historic Sheet Music Collection. The early years of the twentieth
century have often been called the �Golden Age of American Sheet
Music.� Prior to the late 1920s, when radio broadcasting and
motion-picture tie-ins changed the way songs were marketed to the
public, the music industry used beautiful,eye-catching covers to
promote the sale of sheet music for individuals to play � and display
� on their parlor pianos. These covers document the popular culture
and social values of early twentieth century America, and also provide
wonderful examples of cutting-edge period illustration and design.
Their designers used two-, three-, and four-color lithography,
original line drawing vignettes, inset photographs, and hand-lettered
titles whose distinctive fonts and color schemes carefully
complemented the music and lyrics. The descriptive catalog records for
each cover include references for illustrators, composers, lyricists,
and publishers. These new images have been integrated into the
ARTstor Image Gallery and its browsing taxonomy. You may use �sheet
music� as a keyword when searching for these and related images.
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* The Civil War Cartoons of John Tenniel *
John Tenniel (1820-1914) was one of Victorian England's most prolific
and highly-regarded illustrators, best known for his original
engravings for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
and Through the Looking Glass (1872). As chief illustrator in the
latter half of the 19th century for the British humor periodical
Punch, Tenniel also helped to develop the concept of the topical
political cartoon as we know it today. Between December, 1860, and
May, 1865, the American Civil War was the subject of 56 of these "big
cut� cartoons, which offer a distinctly (and often hostile) English
take on events in America. The Tenniel cartoons have been scanned from
original volumes of Punch, and include portrayals of major figures
such as Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and British foreign
secretary John Russell. These new images have been integrated into
the ARTstor Image Gallery and its browsing taxonomy. You may use
�Tenniel� as a keyword when searching for these and related images.
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* About Allan Kohl *
Art historian Allan T. Kohl is Visual Resources Librarian at the
Minneapolis College of Art & Design, where he has taught courses in
the history of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance art. He also teaches
special topics art history courses for the College of Continuing
Education at the University of Minnesota. A member of the Visual
Resources Association, he received the organization's 2003 Nancy
DeLaurier Award for for distinguished achievement in the visual
resources field. He serves on the VRA's Intellectual Property Rights
Committee, with a particular interest in copyright issues as they
affect the educational use of images documenting works of art and
visual culture. His award-winning Art Images for College Teaching
(AICT) website and digital image distribution project, based on his
original location photography of world architecture and cultural
heritage sites, provides a free-access, free-use resource for the
worldwide educational community. Allan Kohl�s AICT was a primary
source of the ARTstor Art History Survey Collection.
