Changing Light: a plethora of digital tools as slides gasp their last?

The following links are copied from this invited blog post via the Association of Curators of Art and Design Images (ACADI):
http://acadi.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/changing-light-a-plethora-of-digital-tools-as-slides-gasp-their-last/

Links

• Original presentation abstract for ‘Changing Light’ 2010
• Final peer-reviewed version of written paper for ‘Changing Light’ 2011 (PDF)
• Additional published papers available freely here: UCA Research Online MTG Outputs

Experience of giving a slide lecture

Following on from recent additional research, as well as some of the themes covered in my paper at the CHArt annual conference (11th November 2010), I wanted to actually experience creating and giving a slide lecture, and so I did this on 23rd November.

Notes and observations on giving a slide lecture

• It is starting to be something a bit different, i.e. although I used slides on a couple of occasions as a student, there is a whole terminology and set-up to learn e.g. where are the slides kept? what are the terms of access?
• The slide collection has to be physically visited; it made me realise how used I am to accessing virtual collections online any time I wanted.
• As I discussed in my CHArt paper, each slide collection has its own idiosyncratic method of organisation, normally based on the academics who made requests to build up the collection in the first place.
• The physical engagement with slide cabinets, pockets of slides, and other associated paraphernalia, is missing from the digital dialogue. I didn’t realise I missed this until I was choosing the slides and actually quite enjoying the immersive process, as opposed to frantically searching online in a much more distracting online environment than the physical Library.
• After my slide lecture I had a few comments about the ‘nice images’, and although I couldn’t comment on the learning experience, certainly there is something to be said for the visual experience, and even the performative aspects of the slide projector.
• Unfortunately the process did require a lot of effort on my part i.e. emails to locate the slides, time to choose them (i.e. because they were monographically organised and I wanted ‘themes’), and emails and phone calls to arrange the projection equipment in the room. I am not planning to use them again.

CHArt 2010 conference – VADS images

To accompany my presentation Changing light: a plethora of digital tools as slides gasp their last? at the Computers and the History of Art (CHArt) 2010 conference, I have selected a few VADS images.

To view the lightbox of VADS images please click on the hyperlink below (or copy and paste it into the address/location field of your browser):

http://www.vads.ac.uk/lboxsent.php?email=mtg@vads.ac.uk&lbname=CHArt2010&si=1

A plethora of digital tools

One of the points I am going to raise in my presentation at the Computers and the History of Art (CHArt) conference tomorrow is that there are so many options out there, it becomes like information overload, almost a digital cacophony of different tools that can be used for visual arts presentations. As if to illustrate my point:

Links

• EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). 7 Things You Should Know About Next-Generation Presentation Tools
• National Institute for
  Technology in Liberal Education. Beyond PowerPoint: Trends in Presentation Technology (23rd April 2010)
• National Institute for
  Technology in Liberal Education. Beyond PowerPoint: emerging technologies (4th October 2010)
• Changing light: a plethora of digital images as slides gasp their last? (abstract)

The death of slides?

Yesterday I wanted to gather some statistics about slide usage in UK universities, to compare with the United States information covered in many issues of the Visual Resources Association journal.

As a mini-follow-up to the Digital Picture survey (2005), I have sent out a much smaller questionnaire aimed more directly at Slide Librarians, Image Librarians, and Visual Resource Curators:

Q.1. Job Title/Institution Name

Q.2. What has happened to your slide collection in the last five years? e.g. down-sized/expanded, digitised or replaced by new digital image collections, decrease in useage or increase in useage, disappeared, or the management subsumed into a small part of other activities, preserved, or in process of any of the above?

Q.3. Are you still making new slides, is this only by special request? is this still supported within your institution?

Q.4. Does your institution still support those who wish to give slide lectures e.g. by providing the equipment (presumably until it can no longer be repaired)? Or has all equipment been removed?

Q.5. How reliant is the future of the existing slide collection on the DACS licence negotiations? and/or what do you predict for the future?

One of the most sobering comments from questionnaire respondents so far:

at a recent library induction a student asked ‘what is a slide?’

Links:

• Journal of the Visual Resources Association: VRA Bulletin
• the Digital Picture project (2005)
• Design Artists Copyright Society (DACS)