VADS annual report 1998 - 1999 (parts 1-3)
The Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) has two complementary goals: the first is to archive electronic information for the higher education community in the visual arts, and to provide access to these digital resources for this community; and the second is to establish and promote standards of best practice for digital research data through our programme of workshops, publications and outreach activities.
In order to achieve these aims, VADS is working collaboratively with the visual arts, museums and cultural heritage community. These communities provide examples of current and good practice which directly feed into VADS standards documentation, guidelines and publications, and also provide the digital collections to which VADS will provide on-line access. In turn, VADS works with data creators to provide guidance about the most appropriate methods of creating, managing and preserving digital resources. VADS is also committed to working with other agencies who are engaged in the process of facilitating the creation and use of digital resources in the higher education community.
In the first year we commented that development of VADS has coincided with a period of rapid evolution in the level and extent of the visual arts communities engagement with digital resources which tends to reinforce the need for an agency such as VADS to facilitate this process and archive data suitable for future use in research and teaching. This is certainly borne out by developments in Year 2, where VADS has been able to build up a set of pending deposits which certainly puts our archive in good stead for the future. In addition we have been able to refine our role partly in response to the process of formal evaluation that the whole AHDS has undergone, this has allowed us to define our core activities of advisory and archiving services more closely within a remit which in year one certainly seemed at times as bewildering untenable as it was broad.
We also commented that in last years Annual Report, that while at present many of the scenarios in which digital resources are used are primarily experimental, it is envisaged that frameworks for the use of such resources will emerge and that they will become part of existing teaching and information delivery practices. This has certainly been the case, and we feel that in conjunction with services such as TASI (Technical Advisory Service for Images) and HEDS (Higher Education Digitisation Service) and through our involvement in steering digitsation projects such as JIDI (JISC Image Digitisation Service) we have been able to put to the test our sense of what constitutes good practice and make a significant contribution to a framework for digitisation projects in this area.
The Visual Arts Data Service began operation at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College on 3rd March 1997 when the full-time VADS officer began in post. This was the result of a successful bid to the AHDS by a consortium of four higher education institutions: University of Newcastle and Northumbria; Glasgow School of Art; University of the West of England and Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College. UWE resigned from the consortium in 1998.
These three organisations are represented on the Executive Committee of our Advisory Group. At its inauguration, a commitment to collaborate with two other JISC funded services was also made and both these services are represented on our Executive Committee. VADS has therefore developed a fruitful partnership with both Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) at Bristol University and the JISC Image Digitisation Initiative (JIDI) - who are also involved with developing and enhancing access to digital images for higher education.
The Director of VADS is Marion Wilks (Head of Academic Services) at the Surrey Institute, the Service is managed by Catherine Grout (VADS Project Manager), Phill Purdy is the full-time VADS Officer appointed in the Autumn of 1998 (Phill replaced Janine Rymer -who left us in October 1998). Gill Wallace is the VADS Administrator appointed, December 1998. Technical support is provided by Mark Burrell, (formerly ADAM and VADS technical officer, now Lecturer in Computing Science - seconded to ADAM and VADS part-time. Further developments have been carried out by System Simulation Limited and Richard Levy of Affinity Vision.
VADS offers services both to those who are creating digital resources and also to those who are using digital resources within a research, teaching and learning environment.
Services to data creators include one to one visits to work with those planning or involved in digitisation projects. VADS has advised on a variety of topics in the past year including the use of resource discovery metadata, data documentation standards, selection of hardware, software and formats and also storage and preservation strategies. More formal guidelines on these topics are available on our website in a series of reports. This information will also be synthesised and presented in an accessible manner in our Guides to Good Practice. Two of these Guides, Why Invest in the digitisation of visual art material? and Creating digital resources for the visual arts: standards and good practice are particularly aimed at data creators. In addition, VADS provides specific documentation, a Collections Policy which outlines our areas of interest and collections' building strategy and a Depositors Pack, and data transfer form to allow data creators to prepare resources for deposit with the service.
Services to users include a programme of workshops and training events. VADS staff have made presentations to potential users of the service at a variety of higher education institutions over the past year. In addition this year we are running a series of workshops which are based on the understanding we have gained in our first year of operation about those topics which are of the greatest concern within the community. Aside from our User Needs Workshop in April 1998, our first workshop in 1998 was on Copyright Law (9th June, in London) and examined scenarios particularly relevant to higher education ), this was repeated twice in Autumn 1998. This copyright series was organised and developed with the Technical Advisory Service for Images. In addition, our third Guide to Good Practice, Using digital information in teaching and learning in the visual arts is specifically targeted at users who wish to develop the use and reuse of digital resources for personal research or teaching purposes. VADS' commitment to identifying user needs and moulding our service to those requirements is highlighted by the VADS User Needs survey which was conducted from December 97 to February 98 and the workshop which followed it in April 1998.
VADS services are available on an 24 hour basis via our Internet server. VADS Staff are available from Monday to Friday 10 am - 6 pm. If we are not available in person, messages are recorded on our voice mail system. Our service targets are to respond to all inquiries within 7 working days. Our Internet server is shared with the ADAM Project and is maintained by Mark Burrell at University of Northumbria at Newcastle. Most network problems should be solved within 24 hours.
VADS is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee via the Arts and Humanities Data Service, and benefits from infrastructure support from the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College. It has use of free office space at the Institute and shares a webserver with the ADAM Project. The web server, Eden, is maintained and housed at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, with technical support from Mark Burrell.. VADS like the rest of the AHDS is now funded until August 2,000, a bid to JISC for continuation funding for the whole AHDS will be submitted this autumn to make the AHDS a full JISC service with funding in the first instance to 2003.
VADS is lead by the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College but also benefits from the guidance and input of the representatives of the VADS partnership organisations, Glasgow School of Art and University of Northumbria at Newcastle. These are each represented on the Executive Committee of our Advisory Group which meets three times a year. In addition, a member representing JIDI and TASI are in place on our committee.
The Advisory Group also has other members who, although not on the Executive Committee, receive privileged information via the Advisory Group mailbase list about VADS operation and development. These members of the wider group are influential individuals from a cross-section of higher education, museums and cultural heritage organisations whose role is to advise, and promote the service.
VADS Advisory Group Executive Committee:
Chair: Marion Wilks, Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College
Please see Advisory Group for additional information
VADS Guide Editorial Board:
Commissioning Editor: Catherine Grout
Editorial Assistants: Janine Rymer (until October 1998, now Phill Purdy
Board Members;
John McKay (Glasgow School of Art) VADS Advisory Group Executive Committee member
Marion Wilks (Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College) VADS Advisory Group Executive Committee Chair
Marilyn Deegan (Oxford University, Refugee Studies Programme) VADS Advisory Group Executive Committee member
Alan Lock (Bristol University) Technical Research Officer, ILRT
VADS Staff:
Director: Marion Wilks(non-salaried on VADS)
Marion Wilks is Head of Academic Services at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College, and is Chair of the VADS Advisory Group Executive Committee.
VADS Project Manager :Catherine Grout (1.0 fte)
Catherine is responsible for the management, strategy and implementation of all aspects of the service. This involves a variety of activities among them authoring policy documents, collections and standards development, promotion, dissemination and liaison. Since March 1998, Catherine is Chair of the AHDS Web Working Group and Virtual Reality Working group. She also represents VADS on national committees of relevance including those which steer TASI and JIDI.
VADS Officer: Phill Purdy (1.0 fte)
Phill was appointed in November 1998 and assists the Project Manager with the operation and development of all aspects of the service, currently he has special responsibility for user services, and providing editorial services to our Guides to Good Practice. Phill replaced Janine Rymer who was VADS officer until October 1998.
VADS Administrator: Gill Wallace (0.25 fte)
Gill was appointed in December 1998 and assists the project team with all aspects of administration, she is responsible for maintaining the service contacts database and assists with website implementation.
Technical Operation:
VADS staff use Pentium PC’s running Windows 95/98 on a daily basis. They also have use of the network at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College, and benefit from space on a shared network drive. The web server, which hosts the VADS web presence and the on-line catalogue, is a UNIX-based DEC Alpha 1000 4/266 machine shared with ADAM, based at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle.
Technical Support
VADS relies on zone support from UNN for the server EDEN and also shares 0.1 Technical officer, Mark Burrell for vital maintenance tasks with ADAM.
Other technical developments to the VADS catalogue are carried out using an external consultant; Richard Levyof Affinity Vision
A. On-Line Help Facilities
The VADS website includes regularly updated information of interest to a broad spectrum of users from data creators, to those interested in developing their use of digital resources, to stakeholders and other services. At the time of writing this report, this information falls into the following broad categories.
About VADS provides vital background information about the organisation and staffing of the service and over views of our development (available in progress reports).
VADS Services contains information by type of user i.e. archiving services (this includes a Depositor's Pack and Deposit Licence), information to stakeholders, and information for general users.
Training, Publications and Case Studies, this provides information about our Guides to Good Practice, our training and outreach programme and also features case studies and reviews of current projects and digital resources of interest to the community.
Standards guidelines, currently provides reports on a number of key issues of interest to the community: on resource discovery metadata for the visual arts, data documentation standards of relevance and copyright guidelines produced in conjunction with the Technical Advisory Service for Images. This category will increase rapidly this year with the electronic publication of the results of our user needs survey and user needs workshop.
Future Plans
New website: VADS will be launching a new look website this year which will mean that existing materials will be revised and restructured to make users' interaction with our site a more satisfying experience.
On-line training pool: it is planned that all the user information referred to above will be available from a single point of access on our site, this will include publications, reviews, case studies, guidelines to users and data creators, presentations and other specific on-line training materials
B. Documentation
In addition to the reports available on our website (which are also available in paper form if requested), VADS is involved in producing four titles in the AHDS Guides to Good Practice series. These are: Guide 1 - Creating digital resources for the visual arts: standards and good practice, Guide 2 - Why invest in the digitisation of visual arts material? (both produced in conjunction with the Technical Advisory Service for Images) and Guide 3 - Using digital information in teaching and learning in the visual arts (a commission accepted by CTI Art and Design). The fourth Guide is a cross-disciplinary guide to Virtual Reality, VADS has been steering a working group to produce this guide in conjunction with the Networked Virtual Reality Centre for Art and Design (NVRCAD).
C. Personal Help Facilities
VADS staff are available to help individual users by either e-mail, fax, phone, or post from 10am - 6 pm Monday to Friday or voice mail outside office hours. We also have a specific e-mail address for inquiries, info@vads.ahds.ac.uk, which are posted to team members, we have a commitment to respond to these inquiries in seven working days.
User Packs and Help Desk: as VADS on-line resource develops we will need to develop user packs relating to resources and also provide help desk facilities to users using our catalogue. Development of these is planned for 1999 - 2000.
A. Advisory Group
The VADS advisory group ensures effective representation and strategic direction of members of the visual arts, cultural heritage and museums community. The Executive Committee currently has 8 members, while the wider membership of the group is 14. There are currently plans to extend this membership by 15-20 people as a result of nominations from the existing group. This is also a reflection of the increase in the scale and extent of VADS activities over the past year, which makes is crucial to ensure the wide representation and involvement of the community in the future development of the Service.
B. Workshops
VADS has been very active in implementing and planning workshops for the community in the past year. We have recognised a clear need from our community to deliver information and stimulate discussion about certain key topics, and workshops have proved an effective forum to achieve this. See below for more detailed description of workshops held in the 1998-1999 period.
C. Outreach and training events
Our outreach and training events in the past year have been divided into three types of activities:
a) One to one visits by members of the VADS team to organisations interested in developing or managing their digital collections, for example:
b) Presentations to small groups at educational institutions to provide background information about VADS and the services it offers, for example:
 | 14 May 1998: Janine went to Glasgow for a Pavilion Group Roadshow where she gave a presentation on VADS and our activities. |
| 9th December 1998: Catherine and Phill attended a seminar organised by CTIAD at the faculty of arts University of Brighton, a presentation on VADS was given |
| 13th January 1999: Phill gave a presentation to OU library and faculty staff in mid January, in conjunction with the AHDS and OTA, to raise awareness of VADS |
c) Conference and workshop presentations either on VADS, or on key topics of interest for example implementing digitisation projects, or locating and using networked art and design resources, for example
d) Outreach events to keep abreast with new developments and increase the profile of the service
A. Collections Development
Deposits scheduled for accessioning
Deposits in negotiation for deposit with VADS
B. User Queries
VADS receives an average of 8 enquiries per week. These range from general enquiries from those interested in using digital data in research and teaching, to those contemplating the possibility of depositing data with the service, to specific enquiries about our activities, particularly workshops. Some of these enquiries are routed to us by other AHDS Service Providers and other agencies with whom we are collaborating. These enquiries are received either by phone or e-mail.
C. Web Usage Statistics
Usage statistics not available
D. Workshops
The workshops held in the last year have generated a very high level of interest from the community:
| The VADS User Needs Workshop on 28th/29 April 1998 Abden House, Edinburgh, was attended by 22 delegates |
This workshop resulted in the following report:
User Needs Workshop Report: A report of the results of the VADS User Needs Workshop 28 - 29 April 1998, Edinburgh
We held three other specific workshops - the VADS/TASI copyright series on the following occasions:
| Rights management, copyright and the new age of the digital image; Venue: Open University Conference Centre, London, |
| | Date: 9 June 1998 |
| Rights management, copyright and the new age of the digital image; Venue: Netskills, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Date: November 10 1998 |
| Rights management, copyright and the new age of the digital image; Hosted by: CTI Art and Design in Brighton |
| | Venue: University of Brighton, Date: November 13 1998 |
The service continues to receive many enquiries about this workshop and queries on copyright issues. Although we are not planning to run this particular event again, we are planning to make the materials available via our Internet Training Pool. Paper copies of the materials are also freely available on request.
Development of the VADS on-line catalogue and cataloguing interface
The VADS catalogue has developed considerably this year. We are now cataloguing electronic collections using an Index+ database system developed by System Simulation Limited in conjunction with ADAM. Mappings have been identified and implemented from our AHDS Dublin Core compliant fields to those available at the AHDS gateway and therefore catalogued resources are searchable now from the AHDS cross disciplinary gateway. More information about our system is available at http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/search.html
We have also developed a working demonstrator interface to our first resource - the Imperial War Museum Art Collection. As the catalogue develops users will have the option of searching within any record at item level across all our collections, as well as searching the specific fields pertaining to a given resource. This functionality has been innovated by Richard Levy at Affinity Vision and offers an increased level of functionality than that originally anticipated by us, especially given the disparate nature of the collections, both in format and structure, that we are accessioning. Once VADS' collections reach a critical mass, a launch event will be planned. We will also be organising user trials and evaluation to test the usability of the catalogue.
Collections Development
Collections development has been extremely encouraging this year. With the focus of the problems we face shifting from problems in identifying suitable resources, to problems in prioritising the delivery of the content we are acquiring. This is a result of two phenomenon, firstly our proactive collections building activities and the increased level of profile of VADS, and secondly a growing recognition in the visual arts community of the importance of digital preservation and archiving.
See Section 8. for a record of our deposits and their stage of accessioning.
Copyright workshop series
This year VADS and TASI held a highly successful copyright workshop series of three. The title of the workshop was "Copyright, Rights Management and the new era of the digital image". It provided a basic introduction to copyright law and its ramifications for the electronic environment and more specifically digital images. It also based the materials around a series of copyright conundrums which addressed issues in the interpretation of the law in various scenarios. This sparked a lot of debate about what the law should be! Any questions we couldn't answer were kindly looked at by Professor Charles Oppenheim, who also vetted our materials for accuracy.
Recruitment
In the autumn of 1998 we were sorry to loose Janine Rymer as our full time VADS officer, however within a short time span Phill Purdy joined the team as VADS officer. Shortly afterwards we recruited Gill Wallace to the newly created part-time post of VADS Administrator. Both new team members settled in very quickly, and the New Year saw VADS operating at a new level of energy (and hopefully) efficiency. We also began employing the services of Richard Levy of Affinity Vision as a technical consultant to work specifically on the mounting of the VADS on-line datasets. This partnership has worked very successfully so far.
Development of consultancy and advisory role
VADS consultancy has reached new levels of demand this year. Assisting data creators in the early stage of digital resource development is proving a valuable exercise for both parties, and creates a good relationship which will hopefully help in the standardisation, preservation and ultimately archiving of many of these digital datasets with VADS. A new development this year has also commercial publishers approaching VADS for consultancy services to help them develop digital resources. This is a promising sideline and we think also demonstrates a certain confidence in the knowledge and level of services we offer. We have also been advising a number of applicants to the new Arts and Humanities Research Board, which involves the fairly time consuming but valuable work of assisting with the production of funding proposals for the creation of new digital resources.
Examples of consultancy include:
A. VADS mailbase list
vads@mailbase.ac.uk is an open list for discussion topics and delivery of information relating to the Visual Arts Data Service. Currently this list has 54 members, the majority of which, 35, are from the UK academic domain, while the remaining are a combination of those with UK commercial Internet access, commercial access from indeterminate countries, North American academics, and UK government employees.
B. Conference/Workshop/Seminar Papers Given
Conference Papers:
| 10 September 1998: Catherine gave a paper at the MDA conference on copyright and digital archiving and the role of VADS. |
| DRH Conference 1998: Janine gave a paper at the on the User Needs Survey and Workshop which VADS ran earlier this year In the evening |
| DRH Conference 1998: Catherine gave a paper on managing access and delivery of image based resources |
Seminar/Workshop Papers or presentations given
VADS is producing four titles in the AHDS Guides to Good Practice Series:
| Guide 1: Creating Digital Resources for the Visual Arts: Standards and Good Practice (VADS/TASI) |
| Guide 2: Why Invest in the Digitisation of Visual Arts Material? (VADS/TASI) |
| Guide 3: Using Digital Information in Teaching and Learning in the Visual Arts (CTIAD commission) |
| Guide 4: Creating and Using Virtual Reality a Guide to the Arts and Humanities (Working Group lead by VADS and NVRCAD) |
Guide 1 will be published in the Autumn 1999, Guide 2, in Spring 2000 and Guide 3 in Winter 1999. The Virtual Reality Guide we expect to be published by Winter 1999. All Guide in this series will be published in electronic form in the first instance - with print publications by Oxbow books once the electronic version is launched.
D. Publications
Surrey Institute Newsletter(Spring 1998)
Article introducing the Visual Arts Data Service plus team photo (Catherine Grout)
Outline Magazinepublished by CTIAD (Spring 1998) Reviews: Art Theorists of the Italian Renaissance; A pre-release CD ROM published by Chadwyck-Healey (Catherine Grout and Janine Rymer)
National Preservation Office Journal (Autumn 1998) Issues for Managing Digitisation Projects: a View from the Visual Arts Data Service (Catherine Grout)
MDA Conference Proceedings, 1998 Copyright, digital archiving and the new age of the digital image (Catherine Grout)
E. Publicity Materials
In the past year we have disseminated approximately 1000 leaflets about VADS Services, 1000 training leaflets, and 500 Depositor's Packs at a variety of conferences, seminars, meetings and outreach events for the community.
International work has perhaps not been as high profile as last year. However we continue to correspond with digital archivist, librarians and curators in the States and Australia, and have added new members to our advisory group from international groups such as the Research Libraries Group. Consortium for Museum Interchange and OCLC. VADS staff have been invited regularly to take place in International conferences and workshops, however budgetary considerations have made this difficult this year. However it is hoped that the publication of our Guides to Good Practice will stand us in good stead within International forums forming data management and preservation standards, the activity surrounding which we have been observing diligently this year, if from a distance.
Our Advisory Group Executive Committee meets three times a year and steers the activities of the VADS team and the development of the service. The Executive Committee also acts as an formal evaluative body to assess the digital resources which are proposed for accessioning by VADS. Members of the Committee have undertaken the role of acting as the Editorial Board for our Guides to Good Practice. A list of Committee members is available in Appendix A, and the minutes of our Committee meetings in the past year in Appendix C.
The Advisory Group also has a wider membership which, although does not serve on the Committee, is privy to privileged levels of information about the Service. It encompasses a cross section of influential individuals from visual arts, museums and cultural heritage organisations who serve to advise, promote and provide effective representation and involvement of the community in the activities of VADS. For Advisory Group members see Appendix B.
Year Two Summary 1/3/98 to 28/2/99
Not available
Launch of the VADS on-line resource delivery system and new website
Cataloguing resources at collection level using our client interface began in Year 2. Furthermore we have now accessioned our first on-line dataset, the Imperial War Museum Concise Art Collection. Once our data reaches a critical mass, we will organise a launch event for our catalogue. We will also launch our new website this year, which has been designed by James Hewitt of Nimbus Designs and developed by members of the VADS team. This will also allow us to re-stucture our materials and provide a more user friendly and graphically based interface to our publications and collections.
The Launch of POSSE
It has become apparent to VADS that a body of material in danger of loss and obsolescence is the degree show websites produced by art colleges and institutes nation-wide. It is often the case that once a year elapses and a new show takes priority the old data is not secured or maintained. As a result what could be a fascinating archival record both of the work of the stars of the future but also changing trends in website design (a creative media in its own right) will be lost to the future (suffering from broken links and inaccessible images). Hence POSSE - an acronym invented by John McKay, Head of Information Services at Glasgow School of Art. POSSE stands for "Preserve Our Student Shows for Eternity" and is the initiative that VADS is now launching to gather together, catalogue and deliver to the community a national archive of degree show material. VADS is actively soliciting the co-operation of librarians, archivist and webmasters to identify, collate and licence this material for use by VADS. Essentially what POSSE will provide is a secure home for degree show materials and also the chance to contribute to a fascinating archive, a great legacy to future generations. VADS is currently pursuing sources of funding for POSSE to allow us to employ a dedicated research assistant. However in advance of this work has already begun on bookmarking websites and identifying those in charge of them. A great deal of material has been identified emphasising the need for such an initiative.
Response to the New Service Provision landscape
A great deal of changes will happen in 1999-2000, three of which are of particular interest and relevance to VADS, these are the launch of the new JISC Image Delivery Service with which VADS will strike a strategic partnership, the Creative Arts and Industries Hub of the Resource Discovery Network Centre and the HEFCE Subject Centre for Art and Design. These cross-service relationships are crucial to minimise overlap and to ensure that our mutual user communities are server proactively and collaboratively
Publication of first Guides to Good Practice
We expect to Publish Guide 1, 3 and 4 in 1998 this Autumn, Guide 2 in 2,000. We expect this to make a considerable difference to the profile of our service and level of use. It will also make it much easier to respond to user inquiries, as reference materials will be readily available on-line.
Continuation as a full JISC service
It is anticipated that the whole of the AHDS will become a full JISC service, from August 2000. This will mean the formalisation of VADS as service offering both advisory and archiving services, placing the service on a more solid footing should also add credibility to our preservation activities.
This period saw VADS involved in extensive formal evaluation activities. Both the Interim and Final Evaluations of the AHDS took place in Year 2. The Interim Evaluation concluded in the summer of 1998, while the Final Evaluation concluded on the 26th February 1999. Both these exercises involved the following methods, firstly the submission of a lengthy self-evaluation report to the committee, secondly submission of letters from key contacts qualified to comment on the various services and activities VADS has been undertaking since its inauguration, and finally by Interview. William Vaughan visited VADS to evaluate us and report to the final review panel, who subsequently interviewed the AHDS service providers and their Director.
Overall this has been a highly profitable exercise for VADS, while providing a heavy weight of reporting, it has however also allowed us to hone our services and mission statement, providing a reasoned reflection on our broad remit, and also to make use of the invaluable input and support of an external review panel.
The next stage of our evaluation will be more informal and will take place as a part of consultation exercises among our community to assess our first guides to good practice and also the usability of our on-line resource delivery system.
