You are invited to visit the Art Image Browser at:

http://www.sils.umich.edu/Art_History/

The Art Image Browser is a searchable database of approximately 2000
images at the University of Michigan School of Information.

During your visit, we invite you to participate in our WWW use study. Your
feedback will help to identify and evaluate features needed for effective
retrieval of digital images in a networked environment.

Images and data for the database are provided by the University's Museum
of Art, History of Art Slide Collection, Kelsey Archaeological Museum, and
a private collection of photographs of Chicano murals.  Viewers can search
and browse by author, title, place, time, medium, object category, and
subject, and can retrieve thumbnail images with accompanying records, and
full-screen images.

The three-year project is conducted by a multidisciplinary team of
researchers at the University of Michigan School of Information and funded
by the U.S. Department of Education.  A key premise in the research is
that browsing can serve an important role as a strategy for retrieving
image information. The research also emphasizes the user perspective in
the design and testing of the system, and used an iterative approach which
questioned art history, art and architecture faculty, librarians and
students in designing the system.

The Browser is being evaluated using four approaches: 1) a controlled
study to evaluate its effectiveness in response to queries searched by
domain and non-domain experts. 2) an ease-of-use study;  3) focused-group
interviews to determine the usefulness of computer-based tools for
providing access to images; 4) a survey of the experiences of the
browser's use by World Wide Web users.

C. Olivia Frost is the Principal Investigator, and Karen Drabenstott is
co-principal investigator. The research team includes students at the
School of Information, the History of Art Department, computer
programmers, curators, and librarians.

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C. Olivia Frost
Associate Dean & Professor
Information & Library Studies
University of Michigan
304 West Engineering Bldg.
Ann Arbor MI 48109-1092
Tel.: 313 763-2285  Fax: 313 764-2475
Internet: [log in to unmask]

URL Art Image Browser:
http://www.sils.umich.edu/Art_History/