What We Want (and Don't Want) to Know about Faculty Using Digital Images: Lessons Learned at the University of California

Abstract

Irvine is one of ten University of California (UC) campuses with extensive image collections stored in multiple archives, museums, visual resources collections, and an even more exten sive system of libraries.1 At last estimate, it was determined that UC owns approximately fifteen million images, but only about 500,000 are digitized?a mere 3-5 percent.2 All of these collec tions support faculty and students in their research and teaching, with the types of image holdings ranging from unique or rare material used primarily for research to canonical surrogates intended for classroom instruction. In the analog world, these various types of image repositories tend to work in isolation, but digital technology is forging extended partnerships and collab orative activities, moving everyone towards an integrated digital environment for image access, delivery, presentation, manage ment, and preservation. The goal of this article is to share how UC Irvine's arts research librarian and visual resources curator, on opposite ends of the campus, discovered mutual interests, created a vibrant partnership, and learned a great deal about educating the educators along the way.