Visual Resources Association 2013 Annual Conference

By invitation only.

By invitaton only.

By invitation only.

Co-Chairs:
Johanna Bauman, Pratt Institute
Sheryl Frisch, California Polytechnic State University

The Data Standards Committee (DSC) was established in 1993 to meet the visual resources community's growing need to manage complex visual collections in the networked environment. Our charge from the Visual Resources Association is "To develop, advocate and promote standard descriptive practices in visual resources collections that will facilitate the management, organization, and exchange of information."

More specifically our goals are:

• To identify, develop, and disseminate information that promotes standard descriptive practices
• To communicate visual resources interests to public agencies that make policy and commercial vendors who develop tools and resources applicable to visual collections
• To establish liaisons and cooperative exchanges with similar interest groups in the museum, library, and archival communities

Co-Chairs:
Barbara Brenny, North Carolina State University
Mary Alexander, University of Alabama

The Development Committee’s charge is to recommend to the Executive Board fund-raising ventures and the means to implement them; to coordinate all fund-raising activities for the Visual Resources Association authorized by the Executive Board.

ORGANIZER:  Marlene Gordon, University of Michigan-Dearborn

MODERATOR: John Trendler, Scripps College

Open-format special interest group moderated by the Public Relations & Communications officer, whose role it is to oversee all VRA publications.  Open to all interested members, the SIG will allow for discussion of publishing, the VRA's publication program, how and why to publish, and the value of publishing for career advancement.  Attendees are asked to bring other topics for discussion or to email them to the moderator prior to the conference.

MODERATOR: Jacqueline Spafford, University of California, Santa Barbara

This discussion will focus on issues related to the management and growth of collections in architecture programs and collections with large architecture components.  The discussion will be driven by topics of interest to audience members.  Topics addressed might include cataloguing issues, challenges and solutions to building digital content, ways to share content, SAHARA, etc.  Attendees are encouraged to bring topics, ideas and examples to the meeting for lively discussion.

The charge to the Awards Committee is to encourage worthy nominations from the VRA membership and evaluate them using the established criteria for the Distinguished Service Award (DSA) and the Nancy DeLaurier Award (NDA). To then recommend to the Executive Board one potential recipient for the DSA award and one or more recipients for the NDA Award, to notify the recipients, to prepare the award presentation speech from the supportive materials, and make arrangements for the award presentation at the annual conference.

The Committee Charge:
To maintain the Travel Award program that has been established to encourage participation and attendance by VRA members at the Association’s annual conference; to administer the awards by formulating criteria for application guidelines and the selection of the award recipients upon approval by the Executive Board; and to arrange for the presentation of the awards.

Co-Chairs:
Cara Hirsch, ARTstor
Allan Kohl, Minneapolis College of Art & Design

The committee charge is to study and monitor intellectual property and copyright issues; and to develop and promote the Association's position on intellectual property rights issues and educate the membership on these issues.

Chair: Vicky Brown, University of Oxford, UK

The VRA International Task Force has been charged with exploring the possibilities of collaboration and a free exchange of information amongst visual resources professionals and institutions outside of North America as well as trying to determine better ways to support international participation in the activities of the Association and increase VRA's international membership.

Chair: Jeanne Keefe, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Charge: To nominate a slate of candidates to run for offices of the Association; to prepare the candidates’ statements and a ballot for submission to the membership with approval by the Executive Board; appoint tellers to monitor the balloting; and to notify the candidates and the President of the results.

Co-Chairs:
Johanna Bauman, Pratt Institute
Trish Rose-Sandler, Missouri Botanical Garden

Charge: To develop and maintain the VRA Core and to support and promote its use in a variety of communities.

ORGANIZER: 
John Trendler, Scripps College

Current Charge:

to investigate the migration of the VRA website, including various website migration techniques, platforms, costs and time required, including less expensive alternatives to each of the major components of the project. Assess current content on the site and recommend its reorganization to function as a communications and marketing tool, allowing for multiple editors, which would relieve much of the burden currently placed on the Web Editor, and implementing a more visually appealing and dynamic look. The group will build from the 2009 Strategic Plan and the 2011 Publishing Advisory Group’s VRA Website Report’s recommendations and will report findings and progress to the board. 

ORGANIZER/PRESENTER:  Jesse Henderson, Colgate University

Yearly meeting for members of the IRIS collaborative and those who are not members, yet interested to find out more. IRIS (Image Resource Information System) is a relational database created in FileMaker Pro for the cataloging of art images by Visual Resource professionals. IRIS is a cataloging tool that uses VRA Core and CCO standards and includes extensive authority files which can be edited easily and exported into presentations tools, such as MDID and ARTstor. IRIS is an informal non-profit cooperative project to which all members volunteer their time and expertise.

The purpose of the SEI is to provide information professionals with valuable training and education in the area of visual resources and image management. Under the direction of the Executive Boards of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and the Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF), the Implementation Team (IT) is charged as the management group for the Summer Educational Institute (SEI) providing or coordinating administration, local arrangements, registration, scheduling, fundraising, publicity, curriculum, instruction and teaching materials.

The VRA Annual Business Meeting is the official forum for conducting Association business. The agenda includes the President's State of the Association message; the Treasurer's report; updates on current and future Association projects and activities; the recognition of outgoing officers, committee chairs, and appointees; the induction of incoming officers, committee chairs, and appointees; and the presentation on the 2014 conference host city. There will be an opportunity for questions and announcements from the membership.  Breakfast will be provided.  Seating in
Grand Ballroom, buffet set-up in L'Apogee 17.

The Executive Board cordially invites all Visual Resources Association members to attend and participate.

ORGANIZER/MODERATOR: Elizabeth Berenz, ARTstor

PRESENTERS:

• Elizabeth Berenz, ARTstor
• Ian McDermott, ARTstor
• Rebecca Shows, ARTstor

ARTstor is a non-profit digital library that provides more than one million images of cultural objects and architectural works covering a wide range of historical, political, social, economic, and cultural documentation from prehistory to the present. ARTstor collections enable a wide range of users -- curators, scholars, educators, librarians, and students -- to teach and study with images in an online environment optimized for exploring visual content in new and exciting ways. This meeting will highlight ARTstor collections and platform features, and will also highlight new developments and features in Shared Shelf.

Shared Shelf is a web-based image management software service developed by ARTstor that provides support for managing and actively using images — cataloging, editing, storing, and sharing them. Shared Shelf also enables seamless integration of image collections with the ARTstor Digital Library for local use as well as the ability to publish to open access environments including Shared Shelf Commons and Omeka.

ORGANIZER: Marlene Gordon, University of Michigan-Dearborn

PRESENTER: Robb Detlefs, Gallery Systems

EmbARK is a suite of software tools designed to catalog and manage collections.  Cataloguer enables the user to input metadata; manage image, movie, sound, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and PDF files; and provides import/export tools to easily migrate data (and it is compatible with the VRA Panel Export-Import Tool).  Records can be grouped into portfolios for managing thematic topics or internal projects. Comprehensive searching options are available.  There will be time for discussion of the latest versions of EmbARK and Web Kiosk. Questions can be submitted in advance to the session moderator.

ORGANIZER/MODERATOR: Grace Barth, James Madison University

In this session the MDID Development Team will share new features and updates to MDID3. The MDID team will be prepared to discuss software and hardware requirements, installation issues, best practices, system integration, custom application development, and other topics. In addition to demonstrating core features and the Media Viewer classroom presentation tool, the presenters will showcase several innovative applications that have been developed and implemented at James Madison University in collaboration with instructional technologists, librarians, visual resources specialists, and teaching faculty.

This informative session is open to anyone using or interested in MDID. Adequate time for a question and answer period will follow the presentation.

Continuing the tradition of a freely shared educational resource, MDID is distributed free of charge under an open source license and is used at many institutions across the United States and around the world.

ORGANIZER: Melanie Clark, Texas Tech University

MODERATORS:

• Anna Bernhard, Colorado State University
• Heather Lowe, California State University, San Bernardino

Join your VREPS colleagues at this meeting to discuss the future of the group, and the educational issues, employment opportunities, and emerging trends in image management that are important to you.

ORGANIZER/MODERATOR: Elizabeth Schaub, University of Texas at Austin

PRESENTERS:

• Elaine Paul, University of Colorado at Boulder
• Adrianna Stephenson, Southern Methodist University
• Betha Whitlow, Washington University in St. Louis

RESPONDENTS:

• Kathe Hicks Albrecht, American University
• Christine Hilker, University of Arkansas
• John Taormina, Duke University

The Summer Educational Institute for Visual Resources and Image Management (SEI) will mark its tenth anniversary in 2013. A joint project of ARLIS/NA and the Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF), SEI offers a substantive educational and professional development opportunity focused on providing the information needed to stay current in the rapidly evolving field of visual resource and digital asset management. SEI participants engage in intensive learning and discussion with colleagues around a core set of subjects that include intellectual property rights issues, metadata, digitization and strategic planning. SEI also strives to address additional areas of interest, such as demonstrating value to administrators and marketing and outreach to patrons.

With over 400 alums, SEI has had a far-reaching impact, influencing decision-making at institutions where members of ARLIS/NA and the Visual Resources Association (VRA) are employed. Increasingly there is a growing contingent of participants who are neither ARLIS/NA nor VRA members, illustrating the relevance of the curriculum to professionals outside the traditional spheres SEI first served when it began in 2004.

This special interest group meeting will provide a historical context outlining SEI’s inception and evolution as a collaborative project and how it provides a model for future joint projects between ARLIS/NA and VRA, address the experience and insights of SEI alums, and describe current and future curricular goals. Ample time will be provided for an open dialog about how SEI might evolve in terms of curriculum and format in order to best meet the needs of its primary constituents.

Charge: To engage in research, build accessible resources, and share information about educational and professional development opportunities for the VRA membership by remaining in contact with appropriate members of related professional organizations and educational institutions. To regularly solicit information from the VRA membership about interests and educational concerns in order to develop supportive programming at the annual conference and as other opportunities arise.

Chair: Elaine Paul, University of Colorado at Boulder

Charge: To support the Association’s membership retention and enrollment efforts in conjunction with the Membership Services Coordinator. This includes the development and maintenance of contact lists and listservs, placing advertisements where appropriate, and coordinating the regional chapters program through involvement, encouragement, and recognition. To make recommendations to the Executive Board and implement decisions of the Executive Board in accordance with the Association’s Membership.

The Committee is responsible for:

• Assisting the Treasurer in maintaining surveillance over the funds and investments of the Association with the goal of steadily increasing the assets while providing funds.
• Ensuring that the Association maintains a reserve fund equal to 6 months of current operating expenses.
• Reviewing and revising, at least annually, the Association's strategy for
  long-term financial growth, and advising the Treasurer and the Board about
  best business and operating practices for non-profit organizations.
• Investigating for the Treasurer investment vehicles for the Association; the Treasurer will submit the recommendations of the committee to the Executive Board for approval.
• Working with the Development Committee to ensure that funds raised by that Committee are appropriately allotted or invested.
• Ensuring that the Investment Policy and the Treasurer’s Manual are reviewed and updated regularly.

While the focus for now is on the Four Corners region, all members from the Mountain West and Plains states are welcome to join us for a discussion exploring the possibilities for a new regional chapter, and the ways it might help us build a better sense of community, support, and communication at the local level; foster better collaboration and networking with allied professional groups in our area; serve as a forum for exploring local resources such as museums, exhibitions, educational facilities, etc.; and create a new channel of communication between individual members and the VRA.

Meeting of the VRA Mid-Atlantic Regional Chapter

• Co-Chair: Jodi Hoover, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Co-Chair: Jeannine Keefer, University of Richmond, VA

Meeting of the VRA Midwest Regional Chapter

• Chair: Rebecca Moss, University of Minnesota

Joint meeting of the VRA Northern California and Southern California Regional Chapters

• Northern California Chapter Chair:  Emily Vigor, University of California, Berkeley
• Southern California Chapter Chair: Greg Reser, University of California, San Diego

Joint meeting of the VRA Northern California and Southern California Regional Chapters

• Northern California Chapter Chair:  Emily Vigor, University of California, Berkeley
• Southern California Chapter Chair: Greg Reser, University of California, San Diego

Meeting of the VRA Pacific Rim Regional Chapter

• Chair: Joshua Polansky, University of Washington/Seattle

By invitation only.