“Chinese Collections in Museums on the Web: Current Status, Problems, and Future”

Hsin-Liang Chen Graduate School of Library and Information Science, UT-Austin chen@gslis.uexas.edu

INTRODUCTION

With the development of computing technology, many Chinese museums and museums with significant Chinese collections have digitized and provided images of their collections on Web sites. These online resources offer users around the world access to valuable treasures to learn about Chinese culture. However, there are obstacles that must be overcome to achieve the goals of promoting the Chinese heritage and educating new generations. The purpose of this project is to study how museum practitioners use current image indexing practices and services to retrieve the images of the Chinese collections. Several issues, including image needs, information-seeking strategies, information queries, search functions, display formats and human-computer interaction are examined in this study. This paper focuses specifically on the current practices of image management. The following questions are addressed:

What kind of images do the museums index?
How do the museums index their image collections?
What kind of indexing tools do the museums use?

BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM

CURRENT IMAGE MANAGEMENT AT MUSEUMS AND ART LIBRARIES

Graham (1999) surveyed 60 art libraries in the U.K. The survey included the important issues of image collections, cataloging and indexing practices, content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems, and the use of images. Graham’s study reports on the current management of image collections and techniques for image and video retrieval in the U.K. Eakins and Graham (1999) study the current state of the art in CBIR systems within the U.K. and submit several suggestions to U.K. governmental agencies, users and managers of image collections, and CBIR software developers. The Visual Image User Study (VIUS) project at Penn State University is conducting an extensive and systematic assessment of its needs for digital image delivery (Pisciotta, et al, 2001). The VIUS project is working to develop digital picture libraries to serve new uses of digital images for teaching and research.

IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION NEEDS AND INFORMATION-SEEKING BEHAVIOR TO SYSTEM DESIGN

Stephenson (1999) examined several cultural heritage image databases and identified key issues for future improvements. She pointed out that, in addition to technological challenges, the areas of audience, user behavior, and use should be addressed as well. According to Stephenson, museums should examine:

For whom are museums building an image database?
What image databases are museums building?
What are those users’ purposes in using the image database?
What functionality do the users need to use the database?

These questions reflect a user-centered design philosophy which assists database designers understand their users thoroughly.

Defining the primary user group

One of the major goals of an online image database is to break the barriers of time differences, geographical locations, and limited physical access to materials. This brings up a critical question: who is the user? The online database is likely to serve a diverse group of users: local and remote users, experienced and naïve users, and existing and new users. Different user services are required for this diverse group of users. Museums should examine the institutional goals and purposes of their online image databases to determine the priority of their missions.

Understanding anticipated users

After determining their primary user group, the museums should study their users. The following questions should be considered:

Goals of designing an online image database
Differences between existing access to the image collection and the use of the new online image database
Anticipated users’ behavior in different locations
Selection of surrogates for image indexing and retrieval
Information architecture of the online image database

Supporting discovery and retrieval

To use the online image database successfully, the users should have knowledge of information retrieval in general, subject areas, and search systems. On the other hand, the museums should investigate the following factors:

Indexing standards such as metadata
Query analysis
Effectiveness and efficiency of indexing tools and methods
Multi-dimensional indexing and retrieval methods
Users’ capabilities
User support and training

Supporting functionality

New functions may be created to facilitate users’ search strategies. To achieve such goals, studies on interface design, human-computer interaction, and users’ information-seeking behavior should be conducted. Different tools may be required by special users and environments.

Other challenges

In addition to the above key issues, the museums also face several challenges:

lack of communication among museums;
lack of indexing standards and tools; and
lack of translation standards of Chinese into western languages.

Chinese museums and museums with significant Chinese collections should form a consortium to establish communication and to develop collaboration. Many western museums have begun those efforts. The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) is one of those consortiums, but its image collections only have about 6,000 works from Asian cultures (AMICO, 2001). The lack of indexing standards and tools is the same challenge for all museums. Most museums either develop their own indexing standards and tools or do not have adequate professional personnel to manage their image collections (CLIR, 1999; Graham, 1999). Regarding translation standards, although American libraries started using Pinyin as the standard romanization scheme for Chinese characters on October 1, 2000 (RLG, 2000), many museums may not be aware of this change and may still use the Wade-Giles system. These challenges are important to the development of image collections.

METHODOLOGY

PARTICIPANTS

Six museums were selected for this study based on the size and diversity of their Chinese collections or their image management. The six participating museums were in the states of California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Washington, D.C.

PROCEDURE

Pre-visit questionnaire

A set of self-administered questionnaires was used to collect librarians’ views on cataloging/indexing practices, the functions of new image management systems, and the use of images. The questionnaires were distributed to librarians before an on-site visit and were collected between January and April 2002.

Follow-up phone interview

After all respondents answered the questionnaires, the investigator examined the questionnaires and conducted phone interviews with the respondents for unclear answers and in-depth information. The investigator identified several key people for observations and interviews when visiting museums.

On-site visit

Based on the knowledge gained from the questionnaires and phone interviews, on-site visits were conducted between June and August 2002. The investigator observed librarians and museum practitioners’ image seeking behavior and also interviewed those people for further understanding of their search behavior. The investigator interviewed museum administrators to obtain their expectations for digital image management in the mission of the museum.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

According to the questionnaires, observations, and interviews, the investigator reports on the current status, problems, and future of image management:

Current Status: all six museums have been digitizing the Chinese collections. Photographic prints, photographic negatives, and transparencies/slides (35 mm) are the most popular formats. All the museums have used or purchased a computer-based image management system to organize the digital images and related information.
Problems: most museums did not have comprehensive records in the past, so they have spent substantial amounts of their budgets and people-power to establish basic records or re-enter data for the digital images. Their conventional cataloging and indexing practices are not suitable or transferable for the new image management system. Image management systems used by the six museums are not able to accommodate the features of the Chinese collections and their records. Most image management systems are not metadata/XML ready, which means that the expansion of the systems onto the Web may be limited. Each museum has its unique institutional structure, which hinders the workflow of image management and a lack of communication and collaboration exists among museums departments.
Future: the development of the indexing schema is critical to the management of digital images and to the museum practitioners and on-line users. Image management systems should be enhanced with the standards of metadata/XML, etc. for the Web-based environment.

Regarding the image-seeking behavior of museum practitioners, and the administration's expectations of digital images, the investigator will report the findings of these issues in the future.

REFERENCES

Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO). . : ,

Council on Library and Information Resources. Scholarship, instruction, and libraries at the turn of the century: Results from five task forces of learned societies and the Council on Library and Information Resources. Washington, D.C.: The Council, 1999.

E. P. Eakins M. E. Graham. Content-based image retrieval: A report to the JISC Technology Application Programme. : , 1999.

M. E. Graham. The description and indexing of images: Report of a survey of ARLIS members, 1998/99. : , 1999.

H. Pisciotta R. Brisson E. Ferrin M. Dooris A. Spink. “Penn State Visual Image User Study.” D-Lib Magazine. 2001. : .

Research Libraries Group (RLG). Library of Congress, other US libraries join international community on use of Pinyin. : , 2000.

C. Stephenson. ““Recent developments in cultural heritage image databases: directions for user-centered design.” Library-Trends. 1999. 48: 410-437.