SPEC Kit 335: Digital Image Collections and Services · 15
The library also appears to take principal responsi-
bility for digital image management activities, includ-
ing creating metadata for images (74, or 99%), hosting
image collections (73, or 97%), cataloguing images (71,
or 99%), and negotiating image use permissions (68,
or 97%). Other units that play a major role in manage-
ment activities include the museum/gallery, academic
departments (with art departments most frequently
cited), and campus IT departments. Other manage-
ment activities mentioned include asset management,
digital preservation, and evaluation of systems. An
integrated and coordinated approach was described
by one institution: “All units in the university con-
tribute to the digital collections with digital images
related to their units and research, including digitized
images and born-digital curated images. The online
repository or digital asset management system tools
allow for easy ingest of existing data and ease of creat-
ing new metadata/catalog records. The Libraries also
have a well-developed permissions process with full
documentation that is regularly done by all partners.”
External organizations also have responsibility for
digital asset management activities. One respondent
explained, “Institutional repository is hosted by com-
mercial vendor metadata for licensed resources may
be purchased or provided by vendor metadata for
institutional repository may be supplied by author.” A
unique approach was cited by one respondent where
cataloguing of images and creation of metadata were
“crowdsourced” using “scholars familiar with content
contained/captured by image,” and an “optimization
consultant helps with aggregating information for
potential metadata inclusion.”
A majority of respondents (54, or 67%) collaborate
with consortia to acquire, create, or manage digital
image collections. State-/province-wide consortia
and research library consortia are the most frequent
partners, and their most common activity is license
negotiation. State-/province-wide consortia are also
likely to host image collections, digitize analog im-
ages, and create metadata. A little more than half of
the responding libraries share digital image collec-
tions with other institutions. These are often state-/
province-wide collaborations where partners contrib-
ute images to specialized or subject specific projects
of common interest that are hosted by a particular
institution. Partners include universities, libraries,
museums, and cultural institutions. Descriptions of
some of these shared collections are provided in the
web pages for shared digital collections in the repre-
sentative documents section.
Storage and Delivery
The responding institutions employ a variety of stor-
age and delivery solutions for digital images and
many take advantage of multiple solutions at once.
These include commercial database providers such as
ARTstor (60, or 74%), local servers available within the
institution (50, or 62%), and repository solutions, both
open source (49, or 61%) and proprietary (36, or 44%).
Almost an equal number of respondents use open
source software (29, or 36%), a shared digital reposi-
tory (28, or 35%), and public photo sharing sites (28, or
35%). Some respondents mentioned open source and
cloud-based solutions including DuraCloud, Glacier-
cloud, and SobekCM.
The most frequently reported delivery method
used by the library to provide access to digital im-
age databases/resources primarily for teaching and
research is online access to a digital repository system
(74, or 91%), followed by online exhibition (61, or 75%),
database search engine (51, or 63%), web site browse/
directory (50, or 62%), search and discovery layer that
allows for searching for images within e-resources
(47, or 58%), and third-party access and delivery sys-
tem (58%). One respondent reported posting images
and metadata on Flickr. Images are also delivered to
users via Dropbox, email attachments, DVDs, and
hard drives. Meanwhile, specialized digital image
collections that are being developed by units such as
archives and special collections use a variety of web-
based tools, Omeka being one frequently reported
example, to promote as well as provide access to their
images.
Services
With respect to service points that support the use of
digital image databases/resources at their institution,
the most frequently reported is a specialized unit lo-
cated in the main library (50, or 63%), followed by a
specialized unit located in a branch or subject library
(37, or 46%). Several respondents noted that access to
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