***** PROPOSAL *****

Digital Image Library Project

The Digital Image Library Project (DILP) is a new project to create an online image database that would be used to archive images for searching and viewing.

News

May 2002: Although work on this project has been abandond. The idea of the image archive has not, and was used in an online catalog.

Problem Statement

Large archives of images, in the form of 35mm slides, are archived in drawers with a catalog system that varies from site to site. Currently, there is software available that allows for image archiving, but the best library catalogs do not include the images. Also, I have not seen any software which will allow for multiple experts at geographically different locations to add there images and expertise into a common database.

Solution

Creation of a new database designed from the start for the Internet. This database would have multiple levels of security to allow for many people to add, remove, and modify image and description data.

Intended Users

The users could include:

Special Features

License/Implementation

The license for the source will be GPLed, but the images in the archive would not need to be GPLed. I would like to see the images to be at least freely reproducable in the digital form of the database.

Implementation could be done in PHP connected to a mySQL server, but this is up for discussion.

Listserve

A listserve has been setup for discussion about this project. E-mail majordomo@bmewww.eng.uab.edu with the line 'subscribe digital-library'. A digest of the listserve will appeare here soon.

Current Work

We are starting now! First there needs to be a discussion about system architecture. And planning. After the system is designed, we need to sell the project to the art historians and other projected users (maybe apply for grants to aquire hardware?).

There is also a need for people to scan images. This project is distributed, so anyone can submit images to the database. Once images are in the database, some people will have to screen the images for there relevance, and which group of exports would be best to add comments to the image.

Database Structure

Image

This table includes the blob for the image itself. Multiple resolutions would be available. Copyright information would be associated with each image.

Description

A table holding all types of information about the image. Allow for multiple records for each image each from a different expert.

There is a many-to-many relationship between the description and the image. This way there can be an image survey of artwork.

Bio

All types of information about a person. This table can be used in a link table to indicate a relationship.

Location

The address of the artwork. If the image is of a building, then the location would be the street address. If the image is of a piece of a painting, then the location would be the address of where the painting is housed.

Creator

The creator of the artwork: artist, architect, etc. This table is a link from a description entry to a bio entry.

Holdings

Table(s) representing the holdings of any individual library

more...

References

www.dlib.org