The following posting comes from the Getty Art History Information
Program:
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January 13, 1994
 
 
Dear Colleague:
 
I am interested in knowing what you consider to be the most pressing problems
posed by electronic imaging.  Your response will help the Getty Art History
Information Program (AHIP) set an agenda for a three-year project aimed at
helping to provide answers to concerns about electronic imaging in the cultural
heritage community.
 
During the past year, AHIP sponsored research to better understand the impact,
opportunities, and challenges posed by electronic imaging.  Our findings, which
were based on interviews conducted with twenty-five people in the field,
indicate that the community sees an immediate need to focus attention on the
following programmatic activities:
 
        -promoting standards (knowing what standards currently exist,
        identifying what standards are needed [e.g., levels of image quality
                for reference versus publication or research purposes], making the
                need for standards known to vendors)
 
        -promoting research to aid in the setting of standards
 
        -education and training (publishing bibliographies, technology reviews,
        guidelines for imaging; developing training curricula, conducting
                training seminars)
 
        -providing forums to address and, where possible, to shape policy on
        key issues, such as intellectual rights
 
        -promoting software development
 
        -supporting demonstration projects
 
Before AHIP initiates the project, I would like to know more about your ideas,
perceptions of the problems, and priorities you see as most urgent to address.
 
Please review the list of activities and indicate which you think are the
three most urgent needs.  Do not hesitate to elaborate on the definitions of
the activities or add to the list.  Please base your response on the knowledge
that it will be a three-year project with a staff of two professionals.
 
Your response will be needed for planning purposes by February 7, 1994.
Howard Besser, who is know to many of you, has agreed to summarize your
responses and present them in a report at a meeting to be held at AHIP.
Howard asks that you send your written responses BY SURFACE MAIL or FAX
(no email) directly to him at the following address
        Howard Besser
        School of Library and Information Studies
        102 South Hall
        University of California
        Berkeley, CA  94720
        fax:  (510) 642-5814
 
Thanking you for your help, I am,
 
Yours sincerely,
Eleanor E. Fink
Acting Director
Getty Art History Information Program