Rijksmuseum launches its collection digitally in Rijksstudio

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam now offers RijksStudio, a vast and ground-breaking online presentation of 125,000 works in its collection. The site, which is a “prelude” to the physical museum’s reopening April 13, 2013, contains high resolution images with which users “can do whatever they like”: create your own printed creations or collect and share image sets. If you’re bored merely searching or browsing the collection, try the Master Matcher, which creates sets based on selected criteria groups like cities, character types and colors. All these projects can be created only when you register for your own “studio.”

ARTstor’s newest features and tools

ARTstor updated its Digital Library to include three new features:

1. Choose number of results you see per page: 24, 48, or 72 (this works for both small and large thumbnail viewing)
2. Add a description your image groups (which, when created, appears to the right of your image group list in the “Open an image group” window)
3. Create folders directly from the “Save image group” window (available only to instructor-level users)

The first two features are located on the small bar above the thumbnail images. The third is further explained here.

WorldImages offers thousands of images

WorldImages database, hosted by San José State University, provides access to almost 80,000 images that are global in coverage and include all areas of visual imagery. The database is accessible anywhere and can be searched by specific fields or browsed by subject “portfolios”.  Images are continually added and organized and all images may be freely used for non-profit educational purposes (when credit is given to the copyright holders who retain rights to the images).

Reverse image searching with TinEye

TinEye is a clever new search engine that does reverse searching to help you find duplicates or better copies of an image.  This means that you can upload the image you are looking for, or paste in the image URL, and it will find all other versions (duplicates and variations) of that image on the internet – no text searching involved.  You can find out more and watch a very helpful three minute tutorial here.

Berlin’s Free University launches “Degenerate Art” database

The “Degenerate Art” Research Center, Art History Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin now hosts a database that documents the fate of over 21,000 works of art deemed “Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate Art) and confiscated by the Nazis in 1937. The database is searchable by artist, title, object type, current repository and specific Nazi-era exhibitions. Many records have images and extensive information about each work of art, its provenance and related literature.  The database, which went live on April 21, is only in German but it appears the Research Center is working on an English version.

also via Bloomberg.com

Another museum website using tagging system

In addition to the Indianapolis Museum (see next posting), the Brooklyn Museum is also using a tagging system to organize, and let the visitor organize, the collections.  It’s a great interactive exercise, allowing you to determine your own set of image search parameters.

Arounder – a new way to visit cities virtually

A new website targeted at travelers can have some great applications for historians as well.  Arounder lets you pick a building or site and view it in the round.  It works with Google Maps to help you find a site (or you can choose from a list of highlights and virtual tours) – double-click on your choice and you’ll get a beautiful full-screen panorama image that you can pan around in 360 degrees (using QTVR files – QuickTime Video Recordings).

Most of the cities offered so far are in Europe (with a range of museums, cathedrals, parks etc. to view) but there is a growing list of US cities as well.

New ARTstor feature: Saving details to image groups

ARTstor has created a new feature that allows users to save details to image groups. This new icon (save to image group) is located at the lower right of the Image Viewer and will save the image (in whatever zoomed and/or rotated position you are viewing it) to either a new or an existing image group.

Note: You must be logged into ARTstor and have Instructor Privileges to create/save to image groups.

Cultural analytics at the UCSD CalIT2 “Wall”

Last week we got a demonstration of The Wall at the CalIT2 center at UC San Diego by Professor Lev Manovich and post-doctoral student Jeremy Douglass.   As stated on their website, they believe that “a systematic use of large-scale computational analysis and interactive visualization of cultural data sets and data streams will become a major trend in cultural criticism and culture industries in the coming decades. What will happen when humanists start using interactive visualizations as a standard tool in their work, the way many scientists do already?”

The Wall consists of 70 monitors (14×5) on which data can be spread.   They are using the ARTstor images and metadata for this part of their analysis.  The demo started with all of Mark Rothko’s paintings tiled across the Wall in chronological order; they were then re-organized based on factors such as brightness, number of shapes, color use, etc.    Here is a YouTube video of the same demo – it’s as gorgeous as it is fascinating.

accessCeramics: a successful collaborative image project

Accessceramics.org is a collaborative database project which allows users to contribute images of contemporary ceramics for educational purposes.  It was started by Ted Vogel and Margo Ballantyne at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, and it uses Flickr image software to upload, organize and display the images.  It can be browsed by artist name, media, technique or object type.

The innovation of this project was recently recognized through the receipt of an NEA grant.