∴ Meg Dolan ∴

On Friday October 18th we visited the National Library of Scotland's Moving Image Archive at Kelvinhall, and the Glasgow Women's Library. At the MIA, Sheena explained the history of the branch, and showed us how to use the catalogue.  I was interested to learn that the MIA collects home movie footage as well as professionally produced material.  For family archival footage, the NLS will digitise the footage for the donors.  As this is often the most affordable way old footage can be salvaged by families, it is a great incentive to bring people to donate to the Library. We next met with Morag Smith (National Development Worker) and Lauren Kelly (Archival Apprentice) from the Glasgow Women’s Library.  It is an amazing institution that prioritises inclusivity and ease of use.  They don’t require proof of address, don’t charge late-fees, and for their women-only events, they accept every definition of woman across the gender spectrum, including non-binary.  The...

For my case study I’m looking at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s ArtLens Gallery system.  The system contains 4 interactive components: ArtLens Wall, ArtLens Studio, ArtLens Exhibition, and the user-downloadable ArtLens App.  All portions of the ArtLens Gallery interface draw from a centralized database of images containing large high-resolution images (photographed with cameras ranging between 48 and 192 megapixels) of all the works currently on display in the CMA. [1] The ArtLens Wall is a 5 foot by 40 foot touchscreen wall.  According to the description on the CMA’s website, the wall, “is composed of 150 Christie MicroTiles and displays more than 23 million pixels, which is the equivalent of more than twenty-three 720p HDTVs. The Christie iKit multitouch system allows multiple users to interact with the wall, simultaneously opening as many as 20 separate interfaces across the ArtLens Wall to explore the collection.” [2] Visitors can engage with art on the ArtLens Wall or...