Megan A. Winget

Describing art: an alternative approach to subject access and interpretation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the art historical antecedents of providing subject access to images. After reviewing the assumptions and limitations inherent in the most prevalent descriptive method, the paper seeks to introduce a new model that allows for more comprehensive representation of visually‐based cultural materials.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a literature‐based conceptual analysis, taking Panofskys theory of iconography and iconology as the starting‐point. Panofskys conceptual model, while appropriate for art created in the Western academic tradition, ignores or misrepresents work from other eras or cultures. Continued dependence on Panofskian descriptive methods limits the functionality and usefulness of image representation systems.Findings – The paper recommends the development of a more precise and inclusive descriptive model for art objects, which is based on the premise that art is not another sort of text, and should not be interpreted as such.Pr...

Game development documentation and institutional collection development policy

Videogames and other new media artifacts constitute an important part of our cultural and economic landscape and collecting institutions have a responsibility to collect and preserve these materials for future access. Unfortunately, these kinds of materials present unique challenges for collecting institutions including problems of collection development, technological preservation, and access. This paper presents findings from a grant-funded project focused on examining documentation of the creative process in game development. Data includes twelve qualitative interviews conducted with individuals involved in the game development process, spanning a number of different roles and institution types. The most pressing findings are related to the nature of documentation in the videogame industry: project interviews indicate that the game development process does produce significant and important documentation as traditionally conceived by collecting institutions, ranging from game design documents to email correspondence and business reports. However, while it does exist, traditional documentation does not adequately, or even, at times, truthfully represent the project or the game creation process as a whole. In order to adequately represent the development process, collecting institutions also need to seek out and procure numerous versions of games and game assets as well as those game assets that are natural byproducts of the design process like gamma and beta versions of the game, for example, vertical slices, or different renderings of graphical elements.

Annotation functionality for digital libraries supporting collaborative performance: an example of musical scores

This paper describes the findings of an ethnographic study that examined the annotation behaviors of musicians working with musical scores for the purpose of performance. Annotation was found to be an important part of the rehearsal process, and specific annotation functionalities are recommended for future digital library development.

Personal Email Management on the University Digital Desktop: User Behaviors vs. Archival Best Practices

This paper will review findings from an extensive user study which seeks to understand the ways in which individuals currently manage, interact with, and think about electronic files, particularly email. Funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), we web-surveyed nearly 3000 faculty, staff, and administrators; and conducted personal follow-up interviews with 100 people across two universities: one public, one private. Our findings indicate that users and archivists have competing concerns. User concerns revolve around the volume of files with which they are forced to contend, leading to wasted time, improperly deleted files, confusion, and general dissatisfaction with the networked environment. Archivists, on the other hand, concerned with the preservation of digital materials, are focused on organizational issues that are often at odds with users’ daily practice.

Archiving the videogame industry: collecting primary materials of new media artifacts

This paper describes the initial deposits in The Videogame Archive at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Digitizing & providing access to contextual cultural materials: the liner notes digitization project

This paper describes a digitization project focused on developing a metadata modeling schema for album liner notes.

Developing a Meaningful Digital Self-Archiving Model: Archival Theory vs. Natural Behavior in the Minds of Carolina Research Project

This paper will review the findings from a research project concluded in 2004, which had the primary goal of learning more about the natural behaviors of people choosing materials for inclusion in a digital archive. Project participants, retiring faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had a number of tasks to perform. They had to 1) survey and choose the materials to include in the archive; 2) develop a “collection development plan” defining the nature of their materials, their intended audience, and the organizational scheme of their collection; 3) provide materials for digitization; 4) supply metadata for the digitized materials; and 5) write a “finding aid” for their collection. The research team digitized the materials and developed a demonstration repository website for the participants. This paper will focus on the disconnect between traditional archival theory and the users’ natural behavior; and the challenges of developing an archival collection given current digital repository software.