We are currently working on user study and evaluation of the University of
Toronto AMICO (Art Museum Image Consortium) Testbed. If you're not
familiar with it, AMICO is a consortium of art collecting institutions that
are working together to make their collections and collections information
available via the Web for educational purposes. A testbed version of the
AMICO digital library of art images (about 20,000 in number) has been site
licensed to 20 university campuses for the 1997-98 academic year. Site
licensing is AMICO's solution to some of the rights and distribution issues
that have been discussed on Museum-L in this thread, and that are inherent
in making large numbers of museum images available via the Web. The terms
of the site license allow designated users (staff, faculty, students) in the
University of Toronto community fairly unrestricted use of the images in the
AMICO library for educational purposes for the duration of the license.
Additional information about AMICO, including the text of the licensing
agreement, is available at www.amico.net/.
Each testbed institution is conducting evaluation to determine how the AMICO
library is used, by whom, and how it might be augmented for identified
groups of users. The use of the AMICO library is limited to designated
users at the University of Toronto, so this makes the process of identifying
and interacting with potential users a bit easier for us that it might be
for publicly accessible web-based applications. Very briefly, we intend to
use focus groups, participant observation, administered to various
identified user groups, such as Fine Art faculty or students in a specific
course, and an online questionnaire available to all AMICO library users.
Our intention is to use a combination of quantitative and qualitative
methodologies in order to identify issues for a broad group of users, and to
gain a focused, in-depth sense of the ways in which a smaller number of
individuals interact with the AMICO library. We're midway through the
project, and I'd be happy to share details, and results when they are
available, with interested individuals.
We'd like to hear about any formal or informal evaluation that others are
conducting and/or planning around current web-based projects, both
collections databases and other types. We would be particularly interested
in hearing from Robert Handy and the Texas History Internet Consortium, and
from those who have conducted front-end or formative evaluation.
Cheers,
Kelly Wilhelm
Project Manager,
University of Toronto AMICO Testbed
[log in to unmask]
Dr. Lynne Teather
Associate Professor, University of Toronto Museum Studies Program, and
Project Principal, University of Toronto AMICO Testbed
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Robert T. Handy
Sent: January 6, 1999 6:50 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Web Databases (collections)
For whatever it is worth, our collections index has been searchable on the
Internet for several years. We are now heading up, under a $50,000 grant
from Houston Endowment, Inc., the development of the Texas History Internet
Consortium. The inititial goal is to get the collections indexes of four
other history museums and a major library in this region to digitize their
collections data and put it on the Internet in such a manner as to allow
searchers access to all indexes simultaneously from any one of their
websites. When the pilot project is complete, the consortium will be
expanded to include all history museums and archives in Texas.
We feel that this will be a tremendous aid to researchers all over the
country, if not the world, who are seeking information on Texas history. A
number of academic scholars have commented positively on the project. It
has been endorsed by the Texas Library and Archives.
It is not our philosophy to hide what we have. We want the world to know
it is here.
------
Robert Handy
Brazoria County Historical Museum
100 East Cedar
Angleton, Texas 77515
(409) 864-1208
museum_bob
[log in to unmask]
http://www.bchm.org
----------
From: Tim McShane[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 1999 5:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Web Databases (collections)
I can understand Mr. Scafidi's concern in disseminating too much
information about collections; I had similar concerns when the board
of the Arrow 2000 Project first proposed putting our collections
database on the Web. But consider this: the heart of most museums are
their collections. The mandates of most museums cannot be met by
simply hoarding objects, or by displaying them with no interpretation.
Some information about the object has to be communicated to the
public. Certainly, some information should be extremely limited in
it's circulation (such as personal donor information, financial
information, etc.), but what's the harm in making information that
would be available in your exhibitions available to the everyone with
WWW access? A brief description of the object, plus the object's
accession number, would be enough identification for most Web-visitors
and researchers, and would provide the necessary information for
requests to the institution for more detailed info on any one item.
We have made the decision to put a limited version of our collections
database on our website, but as we are still computerizing our
information (we're still a young museum, just over a year old) and our
website needs some work, we have not yet publicized our collections
info in this manner. I would like to see more dialogue on this
topic--it will help to guide our actions.
Incidentally, a big factor in easing my mind over the decision to put
collections info on our website was seeing what Artefacts Canada has
done with the collections information from museums across Canada.
Interested persons may wish to check this out for themselves at:
http://daryl.chin.gc.ca/Artefacts/e_MasterLayout.cgi?db=1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim McShane
Curatorial Assistant, Parks Canada
(also, Co-Chair of the Museum Division, Arrow 2000 Project)
Views and opinions expressed are entirely my own, and do not
necessarily reflect those of Parks Canada or the Arrow 2000 Project
Association
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