THIRD REPORT FROM "BROWN BAG LUNCHES" AT SFMOMA; CIA: they are not secret agents!!!
Just went out from another of the interesting lunches of SFMOMA internship program: today was the time of CIA (collection information & access) department.
Their main job is to manage with issues related to cataloguing, copyrights, access and imaging.
Cataloguing and access: and this area concerns issues about the managing of collections database (not only the permanent collection, also exhibitions works are catalogued), according to curatorial interpretations: for instance, it has been shown how the same piece of art has been differently catalogued in 1996 and in 2003, when the curator of the department changed (the label to describe a video installation changed from “double video installation” to “two channels video installation”; it doesn’t seem to be a great issue, but, we have been told that, especially for always growing and changing art branches, such as the one of media art, the change of the curator often bring a renewing in the use of cataloguing terminology). Databases records are not fixed and stable, rather are flexible and always liable to changes, even in cases of well known pieces of art such as “Femme au chapeau”.. of course has been mentioned SFMOMA interest in social tagging/folksonomy issues, but not so in depth as I expected. The department actually uses a CMS (collection management system) called EmbARK, that will be made available through a new digital asset management system (DAM). DAM, in turn, will be accessible via either a web interface or an ODBC compliant database such as Filemaker Pro.
Copyright: this seems to be the hardest area of the department; a lot of legal issues have to be considered when working with artworks: from the concept of “fair use” of a copyrighted image, the one of content transformation (for example the use of a movie scene in a video installation), the use of thumb nailed images on the internet and so on.. using copyrighted images really seems as always working on the borderline of legality!
Imaging: this area is again related to the use of images in different formats; it concerns the acquisition of images of works from external sources, for instance used for lectures or lessons, and the set up of slide libraries for research issues, and issues related to the digitalization of the collection: an interesting example related to Museums use of multimedia with educational purposes is the AMICO consortium, of which SFMOMA is active part.
Hope it has been useful.
Bye.
Amoenus.
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