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A UCLA-SAHARA Architectural Image Collaboration

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Janine Henri and Alivia Zappas
University of California, Los Angeles Arts Library    

Like many faculty who have been teaching with images for several decades, UCLA Art History Professor Dell Upton’s office is filled with slides. There are drawers upon drawers of images of Quaker meeting halls, Machu Picchu’s ruins, and Jean Nouvel’s Institut du Monde Arabe. In spring 2011, UCLA Architecture, Design, and Digital Services librarian Janine Henri supervised library science graduate student Alivia Zappas, and collaborated with Professor Upton to upload and create records in SAHARA for over 400 of these images, digitized from slides.

The collaborative nature of this project was very much in line with the principles upon which SAHARA was built. SAHARA, the Society of Architectural Historians Architecture Resources Archive was conceived to

“…provide an opportunity for the leaders of SAH, architectural historians, librarians, publishers, technologists, and higher education administrators to study, develop, and implement educational and discipline-based strategies to advance scholarly communication in the context of the ongoing digital revolution in the field of architectural history.”[i]

The collaboration between a professor, a librarian, and a graduate student, enriched the experience and enhanced the image records. The creation of an image’s descriptive record often necessitates research. For images of well-known buildings or sites, minimal research needs to be done: the needed information can be gleaned from consulting a book or authoritative source.  Other less known buildings require a great deal more research.

Professor Upton’s records provided building name and location information only. Janine Henri and Alivia Zappas resorted to creative and rigorous reference work to track down appropriate additional information such as dates, materials, and structural elements.  Zappas was then able to build up the records with detailed technical and descriptive metadata: a feature which will greatly increase the retrievability of the records. Henri and Zappas relied on their knowledge of architecture students’ research needs (gleaned from experience answering reference questions) to determine the appropriate amount of descriptive data needed for each image.

Creating image records in SAHARA turned into a valuable learning experience. An unexpected, but enjoyable benefit of the research undertaken in order to describe images was the opportunity to learn about monuments and sites or the history of construction techniques and built works. The mosques of Cape Town were particularly fascinating. Describing these images involved an exploration of the history of the Bo-Kaap, or Malay Quarter, of Cape Town.

The most rewarding aspect of this project was also one of its most interesting components. Professor Upton’s wide-ranging and high quality slides offered some incredible images.  Many feature vernacular architecture or provide visual information that is not readily available elsewhere.  Making these images available, discoverable, and useful through descriptive data was a productive and satisfying project that will help enhance the teaching and study of architecture. Increasing access to these images (and as a result to architectural information) was addictive, challenging, and delightful!  We encourage other groups of faculty, librarians, and graduate students to take on similar projects and contribute further to SAHARA.

 

[i] Whiteside, Ann, “SAH Architecture Resources Archive: A Collaboration in Changing Scholarship,” Art Documentation, 28 (1) 2009; 4-8.

Making architecture theses and thesis prep. work available through an open access tool: the Syracuse experience

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Barbara Opar, column editor

Open Access Week this year is October 22-26. As we approach the sixth year of this program, I can personally attest to the growth of this initiative at my own institution. Peggy Johnson writes in the second edition of Fundamentals of collection development and management states: Libraries are in the knowledge business, with core functions to select and acquire resources, facilitate their discovery, support their access and dissemination, archive and preserve them, and support their community of users as they do their work. Changes in the process of information dissemination have obvious effects in all these areas. The results of research are being perceived as both a public good and a common good as the Internet makes a tremendous amount of research and scholarship freely available and discoverable (p.304). To this end, the Syracuse University Library began an institutional repository in 2009 to make freely available Syracuse University scholarship. Discussions about such a repository had taken place several years earlier at the University level, but it was the Library who saw this initiative through to fruition. Working with BEPRESS, the Library set up a system of collections for each academic unit. When appropriate, series were created within the collections (such as a heading for newsletters).

Individual faculty members were approached to submit articles and book chapters to the repository. Publication guidelines and copyright were carefully reviewed before posting. If a journal did not appear in Sherpa/Romeo as green or was not listed, then the Library turned to a more direct approach, reviewing the actual journal guidelines and/or contacting the editor directly. In this way, the repository began to grow. This is still an important aspect of SUrface, as our repository is known. Incoming students can now read articles by faculty members or learn about the history of the department through sources like digitized lectures.

But Syracuse has, as well, collected undergraduate theses and thesis preparatory booklets. While most institutions collect graduate work, Syracuse has also maintained a collection of undergraduate thesis work. At one point, all such work was collected. But, as students often turn to past years’ examples for study, it was decided to retain only B+ and above theses and thesis prep. books so that students would  browse only “good”  work for  models.  These theses were barcoded and accessible through the Library’s reserve module. Items could be searched by author and title but not readily by keyword. The collection was also difficult to maintain due to high use and varying bindings and formats.

With our institutional repository well established, thesis work seemed a natural addition to SUrface. The department had previously followed the generally accepted practice of making print copies of exit projects submitted in partial fulfillment of a degree available for public reference. So this policy was adapted for the digital copies.

New categories had to be set up in SUrface to accommodate undergraduate work. Digitization standards were put in place to allow for the material to be loaded and viewed. Digital copies had to be reviewed for completeness and clarity. Information, such as the degree, date and the student’s complete name, was verified by the recorder when necessary. Abstracts were created when they were not part of the original document.

For the past two semesters, students have submitted digital copies of their work and the department has made that information available to us. However, many of these files have been very large so they have needed to be optimized, reduced or, in some instances, broken down into several parts.

After countless hours of hard work and persistence by a group of dedicated students, most of the theses and thesis prep. booklets have been uploaded to SUrface. Not surprisingly, these materials are being used. There are currently a total of 267 masters theses, senior theses and thesis prep. books on SUrface. Reports (over the course of about 9 months) indicate a total of 2,064 downloads.

More work remains. We do not have all the theses or thesis prep. books that meet the established criteria and plan to look to faculty help in securing as many of these as possible.

We also plan to ask that next year’s students submit files read to upload and suggest appropriate keywords.

Although more work remains, the project has resulted in improved access, increased visability, and more room for other library material!

Submitted by Barbara Opar with special thanks to Yuan Li,  SUrface administrator, and to Carrie Leneweaver, Christina Hoover and Linsay Royer for all their hard work in completing this project.

AASL Column, March 2013

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Barbara Opar, column editor

The purpose of this month’s column is two-fold. First of all, I wish to draw your attention to a new digital cultural heritage project. Project CHART’s Brooklyn Visual Heritage has just been launched by the Brooklyn Public Library.  This website provides access to newly digitized 19th and 20th century photographs and related material from the collections of the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Public Library. The project is to be lauded for its collaborative nature.

At the same time, this new project reminds me of an important work edited by Fiona Cameron and Sarah Kenderdine.  Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage: A Critical Discourse was published in 2010 by MIT Press and consists of twenty essays covering different aspects of the presentation of cultural content in a digital format. Navigating Brooklyn Visual Heritage illustrates the changing nature of visual research. While cultural heritage websites have long enabled researchers to become familiar with archival content before visiting the institution(s), today’s sites serve as more than surrogates. The sites allow for interpretation of content and can create their own “story”.

In Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, Cameron and Kenderdine present essays which address this topic as well as discuss examples of how technology can be used to further the user’s interaction with digital content. “Hyperdocuments” and inverse engineering which teams up archaeology and computer technology to advance research are two of the methods presented in this text as applications which can enhance the user experience.

Brooklyn Visual Heritage, while interdisciplinary in nature, is still an example of a more traditional site. But as you navigate this site as well as others focusing on cultural artifacts, consider how technology can and will allow for different experiences with archival material.

Open Access week

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Association of Architecture School Librarians
by Barbara Opar, AASL column editor and Architecture librarian at Syracuse University

Libraries across the country celebrate Open Access week in October. This year’s dates are  October  24th through the 28th.

Open Access Week is an international event now in its fourth year. The events planned by many libraries offer opportunities for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, which provides a new way to disseminate scholarship and research.

Open Access makes free, immediate and online access to the results of scholarly research. Open access content can be used and re-used and can transform the way research and scientific inquiry is conducted. It offers immediate benefits for academic institutions. For the academic community, Open Access (OA) can maximize the impact of research by providing wider exposure. Researchers can more easily find information and can then build upon what has been has been done, thus enhancing scholarship. The number of research funding agencies, academic institutions and individual researchers, teachers and members of the general public supporting a move towards Open Access is increasing every year.

Here are a few peer reviewed Open Access journals that you may not have seen:

Architectural Roofing & Waterproofing: http://www.arwmag.com/
Art Design and Communication in Higher Education: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=139/
Crossings: Electronic Journal of Art and Technology: http://crossings.tcd.ie/
Interior Design: http://www.interiordesign.net/
Opolis: An International Journal of Suburban and Metropolitan Studies:  http://escholarship.org/uc/cssd_opolis
Plumbing and Mechanical: http://www.pmmag.com/
Residential Architect Online: http://www.residentialarchitect.com/default.aspx
Residential Design and Build: http://www.rdbmagazine.com/
SitePrep: http://www.siteprepmag.com/
Stone World: http://www.stoneworld.com/
Tile: http://www.tilemagonline.com/
Wood Digest: http://woodiq.com/default.aspx

The Architecture Retail Pamphlet Collection at the University of Houston

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By Catherine Essinger

 

In 2010 the University of Houston’s Architecture and Art Library began collecting a diverse array of historic retail brochures, pamphlets and catalogs related to buildings and the decorative products that once filled them.  The collection features various paint and varnish pamphlets, as well as brochures from companies dealing in plumbing fixtures, fireplace heaters, tin roofing, furniture and more.  Beyond product illustration, the images capture descriptive text, specifications and price lists.  Most were published in the late 19th and early 20th century.  While browsing the collection, one can observe American decorative style transition from the Victorian to Modern. Comforting catalogs of stick style house plans published in the 1880’s give way to sleekly appointed Art Deco bathrooms in a “Modern Plumbing” pamphlet published in 1921.

The collection includes small folios, substantial bound catalogs, and a nine panel folded brochure extolling the virtues of Curtis Kitchens.   (“What a thrill when friends say – ‘I just love your kitchen,’” declares Mrs. America 1938 on the Curtis Kitchen brochure.)

The documents in the Architecture Retail Pamphlet Collection are extremely rare.  Most are the only copy listed in OCLC.  In order to increase access to the collection, they are gradually being digitized and made freely available online in the University of Houston’s Digital Library (digital.lib.uh.edu).  At the time of this writing 21 are already available for viewing and 15 more will be ready near the end of March.  This is a growing collection, so new materials will be digitized and made available for the next few years, as well.

Users may request high-resolution copies of every image in the Architecture Retail Pamphlet Collection.  As all digitized materials are in the public domain, they may be used freely in research, teaching, and publishing, though we do request acknowledgement in any published works.

Some highlights from the current online holdings include:

J. L. Mott Iron Works. “Modern Plumbing #10.” 1921.

The J. L. Mott Iron Works was established in 1828, in an area of the Bronx now called Mott Haven.  This sleek 49 page pamphlet offers fixtures and accessories for fashionable bathrooms and industrial kitchens.

 

L. Bonfils & E. Fesquet. “Ornaments En Zinc.” 1900.

One of the few European catalogs in the collection, the substantial edition from Paris includes zinc campaniles (cupolas), finials of all sorts and designs, corner mouldings, lucarnes (dormer windows), vases, girouettes (weathervanes), balustrades and lambrequins.

 

 

 

Raymond Bonnefond . “Marqueterie D’Art.” 1932.

In addition to the traditional Classical, fruit and floral, and jazz-era motifs one might expect from this catalog published in 1932, customers could order the visage of Lenin, Benito Mussolini, or French Prime Minister Raymond Poincare in marquetry.   Veneer makes strange bed-fellows.

 

 

 

Ramp Buildings Corporation . “The Modern Garage.” 1929.

The Ramp Buildings Corporation was established in 1920.  This 1929 booklet makes the case for that recent development, the “automobile hotel”:

The Modern Garage, as that term defines a mid-city building especially designed to house motor cars in numbers, is the tool of a new industry.  Indoor Parking has become a national necessity.  The mid-city Garage is, today, an institution of public utility and is recognized as such… The years to come may bring us multi-level streets and traffic boulevards which today appear in the haze of fantastic dreams.  Whatever may be the relief for the congestion of moving traffic it is unquestionably a fact now and for indeterminate years to come, that the only possible alleviation of parking congestion is to provide space for storing cars for an hour, a day or a longer time, off the street.  Thus, for the needs of today and the increasing needs of the future, man’s ingenuity has created the Modern Garage, and not as a luxury-priced necessity but as a sound economic utility.

Some other items already available online:

Berlin Iron Bridge Co.. “The Berlin Iron Bridge Co..” 1889.
Built-in Fixture Company. “Peerless Built-in Furniture.” 1926.
C. Schrack and Co.. “Architectural Varnish List.” ca. 1930.
Caldwell & Peterson Manufacturing Company. “Continuous Tin Roofing.” 1890.
Come-Packt Furniture Company. “Sectional Come-Packt Furniture.” 1912.
Glidden Varnish Company. “Jap-A-Lac.” 1890.
Homestead Heater Company. “Homestead Fires.” 1935.  “Truly appropriate
fireplace heaters” – Cover.
M. Macdonald & Co.. “Steeplejacks.” 1920.
Murphy Door Bed Company . “The Murphy In-A-Dor Bed.” 1926. (sic)
Red Cedar Shingle Bureau. “Red cedar shingles: artistic and practical.”
Red Cedar Shingle Manufacturers’ Association. “Red cedar shingle.”
Scranton Lace Company. “Scranton: New outlooks for every home.”
Sears, Roebuck and Company. “How to paint.”
Shingle Branch of West Coast Lumberman’s Association/Shingle Agency of British
Columbia. “Distinctive homes of Red Cedar Shingles.” ca. 1910.
Wm. B. Gleason & Co. . “Natural Wood Ornaments for Furniture Maufacturers,
Architects, Builders,
Interior Decorators…: Illustrated Price List.” 1882.

Pamphlets being digitized as of this writing include several catalogs of early 20th century storefronts, metal ceilings and walls, mid-century windowalls, Art Deco and Moderne lighting, both American and British ironworks, and Arts and Crafts-style metal casements and stained glass.

Researchers will find new and developing collections on art and architecture from the College of Architecture’s rare books room whenever they visit digital.lib.uh.edu/aa.   Expect new additions to the Architecture Retail Pamphlet Collection every few months.    Our goal is to provide historians with a window into the evolving design styles available to customers in the U.S. and elsewhere in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Please contact archlib@uh.edu with questions or feedback about the collection.

AASL Column, January 2012

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Column written by Martha Walker, Architecture Librarian and Coordinator of Collections

Fine Arts Library,  Cornell University.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 If we encounter a man of great intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Well, in a sense we did!  Sometimes it is necessary to move a library – its collections, services and staff. Since the summer of 2010, the Fine Arts Library (FAL) at Cornell University has been on the move. Along the way, we learned some interesting  things about our collections and their use.

For a number of very good reasons, the collection (of roughly 140,000 volumes) and the library’s service points and staff have moved to an adjacent facility, Rand Hall. For more information about the move and plans for the FAL, please refer to the September 2010 issue AAP news (online at:  http://aap.cornell.edu/news/newsitem.cfm?customel_datapageid_2892=420927 )

In order to fit into our temporary location, it was necessary to shift 78,000 volumes to Cornell’s Library Annex (which ships user- selected items back to the central campus on a daily basis). Choosing which 78,000 volumes to shift was made easier by the availability of computer generated use reports. That is, we ran a query on the FAL’s circulation data to determine which titles were lower use, with the hope that these items would be those least missed by most users. We quickly learned that we were able to further refine our search by subject classification — in our case, the art, architecture and planning sections of the collection. Eventually, staff curiosity led to a query on the most frequently circulated titles in architecture (the “NA” section of the collection).

It did not take long for news of this query to attract interest, and by November of 2010, a (heavily securitized) exhibit of our most frequently circulated titles was mounted in AAP’s Hartell Gallery. The success of the exhibit, and the interest it generated, was a surprise to all library staff. I shared this experience with my AASL colleagues in Montreal last spring, and was encouraged to publish our list of the most frequently circulated NA titles. A few caveats, the list I’ve included below is limited to 2005 – 2010 data, and it does not include “browse” statistics (titles looked at but not charged from the library). Finally, some titles have duplicate holdings. Therefore one title, i.e. Delirious, New York may show up lower or twice on the list; or, in the case of Small, Medium, Large, X-Large, our reserve copy simply fell to pieces. Its replacement received a new item record and a non-cumulative count. Therefore, here are our top twenty circulating titles (with consideration for these and perhaps other data anomalies) and their number of historical charges between 2005 and 2010:

TitleU

HistChg

Details of modern architecture / Edward R. Ford.

349

Archetypes in architecture / Thomas Thiis-Evensen ; [translated by Ruth Waaler and Scott Campbell].

341

Town and square, from the agora to the village green.

330

Mathematics of the ideal villa, and other essays / Colin Rowe.

273

Collage city / Colin Rowe & Fred Koetter.

267

Delirious New York : a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan / Rem Koolhaas.

260

Delirious New York : a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan / Rem Koolhaas.

252

Design of cities / Edmund N. Bacon.

235

Town and square, from the agora to the village green.

234

Cornell journal of architecture.

233

Small, medium, large, extra-large : Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rem Koolhaas, and Bruce Mau / edited by Jennifer Sigler ; photography by Hans Werlemann.

209

Cornell journal of architecture.

208

Villa Savoye, Poissy, France, 1929-31 / Le Corbusier [i.e. C. Jeanneret-Gris ; edited and photographed by Yukio Futagawa ; text by Richard Meier.

206

Small, medium, large, extra-large : Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rem Koolhaas, and Bruce Mau / edited by Jennifer Sigler ; photography by Hans Werlemann.

202

Details of modern architecture / Edward R. Ford.

187

Theories and manifestoes of contemporary architecture / edited by Charles Jencks and Karl Kropf.

178

Finding lost space : theories of urban design / Roger Trancik.

167

Maison de verre / Pierre Chareau ; edited & photographed by Yukio Futagawa ; text & drawings by Bernard Bauchet ; text by Marc Vellay = Garasu no ie : Daruzasu-tei / Pi_ru Shar_ ; kikaku satsuei, Futagawa Yukio ;bun zumen, Berun_ru Boshe ; bun, Maru

161

Five architects : Eisenman, Graves, Gwathmey, Hejduk, Meier.

149

Library moves are never easy,, but I am fortunate to be surrounded  by beautiful books at an institution that values information in all its many formats. What makes the job even more rewarding is knowing, and having proof, that our collections are also so very much appreciated by our patrons.

JSTOR Enhancements: the Beta Search

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AASL Column, June 2013
Barbara Opar, column editor

 

JSTOR recently released its “Beta Search”.  This search has been completely redesigned with both a new  search engine and a changed interface. The new search is easily accessible from a link on www.jstor.org. At the moment, it is being listed as an additional option in order to avoid disrupting regular research workflows on the site. JSTOR looks to develop this search further:

  • Refining the new interface with facets that allow easy narrowing/broadening of searches
  • Improving relevance rankings with results that more closely match search terms
  • Incorporating new features, including auto-suggested search terms and spell checking
  • Enhancing the search results view to support evaluation of relevance including the ability to preview article and book details directly from the search results list

Beta Search will incorporate what staff are calling “topic modeling” to enhance discovery of content. Unlike standard searching on JSTOR where searches can be focused only within disciplines assigned at the journal level, the Beta Search will use text analysis techniques to automatically assign one or more topics to an article. JSTOR feels that this enhancement will help searchers find relevant content that may be outside of their main disciplinary area.

Read more about the Beta Search (including the application of topic modeling) at http://about.jstor.org/beta-search.

Copyright Matters

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Association of Architecture School Librarians
Barbara Opar, column editor

Copyright continues to be a concern to the academic community. For the scholar, there is often a desire retain intellectual property rights of the content. For the teacher, there is a need to obtain and often distribute sought after materials to students.

But what is right in terms of practice? What is indeed fair?

Quite a number of venues provide useful information. Notable and trustworthy among them are:  The United States Copyright Office:  http://www.copyright.gov/

The Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), which was founded in 1978 as a not-for-profit organization is now offering its expertise through a series of free webinars:

The full list and links to registration are available at:  http://www.copyright.com/content/cc3/en/toolbar/aboutUs/eventsAndTradeshows.html

The University of Texas at Austin provides a clear “crash course”:   http://www.lib.utsystem.edu/copyright/

EDUCAUSE, which is a nonprofit association whose mission is advancing higher education through the intelligent use of information technology, offers this information about online course material:  http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERB0301.pdf

Database Review: ArtSource

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Barbara Opar, Column editor
Column submitted by Barret Havens, Asst. Professor and Outreach Librarian, Woodbury University

ArtSource, a relatively new offering from academic database provider Ebscohost, incorporates all of the full-text periodicals previously available via the Art and Architecture Complete and Art Full Text databases along with 70 additional periodical titles. Of the total of 630 full-text journals available via ArtSource, 76 titles were deemed by this reviewer to be directly related to architecture, interior design, landscape design, or urban planning. Most of the titles in addition to those 76 were also deemed worthwhile as they represent a broad range of art and design topics that are essential to a well-rounded architecture collection.

Indexing (non-full-text records) within ArtSource is extensive, and incorporates all of the content from Art Index, Art Index Retrospective, and Art Abstracts. Since the database does include so much content from other digital collections for which institutions may already be paying, adding ArtSource to the mix could be an affordable upgrade, as it was for this reviewer’s institution since they were already subscribing to Art Full Text. Unfortunately, though there is a great deal of overlap, ArtSource subscribers will not have access to all of the records indexed in the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals.

To those familiar with other databases offered on the Ebscohost platform, there will be few surprises when it comes to searching. Limiters such as document type and publication type, the ability to limit to peer-reviewed publications, and other standard features are available. What is lacking, however, is the ability to limit by the variety of drawing types that are included in the “physical description” limiter of The Avery Index. The image descriptions by which a searcher may limit in ArtSource are somewhat vague: “diagram,” “illustration,” “map,” “chart,” etc.

One useful feature for exploring images within the database is “image quick view.” When this option is toggled, a selection of images contained within each article in the list of results appears below the item. It is easy to access those images without going into the article itself as they can be opened as separate files. Conveniently, each image file comes with its own bibliographic record detailing the source.

This method of accessing images is also provided for the 220 e-books in the collection, which are available in PDF format. What is somewhat confusing about exploring the e-books, however, is the fact that they are broken into article-sized chunks; you will see chapters or small portions of books listed in the search results, making it difficult to make sense of how to access and navigate the entire work. It would probably make more sense to provide access to these e-books by loading the records into your institution’s library catalog.

Publishing embargoes (delay before releasing full text articles) are not excessive compared to other databases, but a considerable number of journals are only available for a short chronological range. Furthermore, though well over half of the architecture-related periodicals available in full-text are in .pdf format, a significant portion are .html and therefore do not include images that may have been in the original publication.

Overall, this database is comprehensive, easy to use, and relatively affordable for institutions that are already subscribing to databases that are incorporated in ArtSource. But, though it may provide your institution’s Avery Index users with more full-text via your link resolver, it cannot be considered a one-stop-shop for architecture researchers since it does not contain all of the content indexed in The Avery Index.

ArtSource periodicals directly related to architecture/planning

TitleFull-text startFull-text stopFull text delay (embargo)PDF w/ images avail?
Architect2006no
Architect-designed Houses19961997no
Architecton2011yes
Architect’s Journal2006no
Architectural Design201112 mo.yes
Architectural Digest1995no
Architectural Heritage199812 mo.yes
Architectural Record1998no
Architectural Review1993no
Architectural Science Review20082010no
Architectural Theory Review200818 mo.yes
Architecture-Technology-Culture2009yes
Architecture and Urban Planning2008yes
Architecture Australia1996yes
Architecture Boston2012yes
Architecture Ireland2013yes
Architecture New Zealand2009yes
Architecture of Israel2008yes
Architecture Plus Design20102011no
Architecture_media_politics_society2012yes
Architectus2011yes
Arkitektur Aktuell200412 mo.yes
Archivos de Arquitectura Antillana2008yes
ArchNet-IJAR2008yes
ARQ (Chile)20052011no
ARRIS20122012no
Assemblage19972000no
Buildings & Landscapes2007yes
Cadernos d’Obra2011yes
Canadian Architect2002yes
Center2010no
Construction Specifier2012yes
Daidalos19902000no
DEARQ2007yes
Detail2007yes
Early Homes2010yes
Evolo2009yes
Fabrications200712 mo.yes
FORM: Pioneering Design2008yes
Frame (Netherlands)2013yes
Future Anterior2007yes
Garden Design2008yes
GreenSource2010no
Grey Room200012 mo.yes
Home Cultures20042010no
Hospitality Design1993yes
Inland Architect19972001no
Interior Design1998yes
Int’l Journal of Islamic Architecture2012yes
Interventions/Adaptive Reuse2009yes
Issues in Art, Architecture, and Design19951999yes
ITU Journal Series A: Arch., Planning, and Design2009yes
IUP Journal of Architecture20102012yes
Journal of Architectural and Planning Research19982011no
Journal of Architectural Education199912 mo.yes
Journal of Architectural Engineering199512 mo.yes
Journal of Interior Design200412 mo.yes
Journal of the American Planning Association199018 mo.yes
Landscape Architecture Australia2009yes
Landscape Design/Build20052007yes
Landscape Journal1997yes
L’Architettura19982003no
Lighting Design & Application2011yes
Places: Forum of Design for the Public Realm1997yes
Plan: Architecture & Technologies in Detail2011yes
Planning1993yes
Rassegna di Architettura e Urbanistica2012yes
Revista Proyecto, Progreso, Arquitectura2012yes
Time-based Architecture Int’l20092009yes
Town Planning & Architecture2004yes
TPR: Town Planning Review2004yes
Vernacular Architecture200512 mo.yes
Vernacular Architecture Newsletter2009yes
Werk, Bauen, und Wohnen2001yes
Winterthur Portfolio1999yes

 

Digital Collaborations within and beyond the design academy: The Library transformed

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Barbara Opar, column editor

At this year’s conference in Boston, the Association of Architecture School Librarians sponsored a special focus session which explored some of the ways in which new technologies are continuing to transform how we collect, share, teach and experience the creative and scholarly record of the built environment. Moderated by Sarah Dickinson of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the AASL panel addressed collaborations which take full advantage of the digital environment.

Hannah Bennett, Architecture Librarian at Princeton University was the first speaker and presented her views on the physical space of the library as a human research environment. Using a term drawn from sociology, Bennett discussed two paradigmatic libraries as case studies for the way in which architectural design can advance library technologies and research protocols. Gunnar Asplund’s Stockholm Public Library of 1928 has been nicknamed “the mind” and suggests a way to imagine the nature of research.  The second library, Norman Foster’s Philology Library at the Free University in Berlin, has been called “the brain” and looks to anticipate the rapid changes in library technologies. Seen together, the buildings present a contemporary understanding of the nature of intelligence.

The panel then turned to presentations of projects aimed at advancing scholarship through new library technology. Ann Baird Whiteside, Director of the Frances Loeb library at the GSD , and Jesse Shapins, an instructor at that institution, presented Zeega, an open-source HTML infrastructure built on public APIs which enables users to view, annotate and remix Harvard’s own digital collections with our repositories on the web.   At MIT, Façade: Future-proofing Architectural Computer-Aided design is a project which looks to identify, collect, manage, archive and make accessible CAD models and documentation.  Jolene de Verges, Digital Projects and Metadata Manager for MIT Libraries, described collaborative efforts with leading practitioners and how the work will benefit architecture libraries and archives.

At Notre Dame, Samantha Salden, an assistant professor, is collaborating with the Library to put forth a digital research portal on Seaside. Launched in September 2011, the Seaside Research Portal uses new technologies to archive, organize and present the architecture and urban design of Seaside, Florida. Jennifer Parker, the Architecture Librarian at Notre Dame, described how this project is benefitting the Library while embedding critical thinking, research, and precedent analysis into the studio curriculum.

Next month’s column will talk about other collaborations in architectural education as presented by speakers at the 2012 AASL conference.

 

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