ARTstor Digital Library image downloads via zip files

As of today, users who download single image files from the ARTstor Digital Library will receive a zip file that contains a JPEG image and an HTML file with the associated metadata (find out why here).

Many versions of Windows come equipped with a built in zip program, but if you need to install a program on your PC, ARTstor recommends 7-Zip, available free at 7-zip.org. Mac users will not need to install software to handle zip files as it is already built into OS X.

We recommend that you clear the cache and restart your Web browser before first downloading images today.

You can find instructions on how to download images and open files on the ARTstor Help Wiki, and you can also download our guide for using zip (PDF, 621 KB).

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact User Services at userservices@artstor.org.

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ARTstor Digital Library drops Java

We are happy to announce an update that will eliminate the need for Java in the ARTstor Digital Library. In the near future, single image downloads will be delivered in zip files.

ARTstor has been using Java for downloads of individual images, but recently the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began recommending that Java be disabled due to security concerns. After our update, users who download single image files will receive a zip file that contains a JPEG image and an HTML file with the associated metadata. In addition to removing the need for Java, using zip will allow ARTstor to pursue other feature enhancements, such as additional options for image group downloads.

For some users, mainly those on PCs, it will be necessary to install software such as 7Zip to unzip their downloads.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact User Services at userservices@artstor.org.

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If I Knew Then What I Know Now

Pantheon; Interior view #1 | 118-126 CE | QTVR Panoramas of World Architecture (Columbia University) | Visual Media Center; learn.columbia.edu

By Dana Howard

True confession: I was a sporadic—and inattentive—user of the ARTstor Digital Library. My high school was a fairly early adopter of ARTstor. I used it a lot on those early years, but as I had more and more of my slides “in the can,” I stopped paying attention to the changes taking place in the Digital Library.

I would periodically run to ARTstor when I was asked to do presentations at the last minute, (I found the ability to do a quick download of Image Groups to PowerPoint very helpful), but for the most part I was too busy to explore new tools and new collections as they were announced. I think I was typical for a high school user; I was busy teaching and felt constantly bombarded with new resources elsewhere.

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ARTstor Mobile to the rescue

Watch this video to see how ARTstor Mobile helps Sarah Martha Shipman, an MFA in painting candidate at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

You can use ARTstor Mobile on Android or Apple devices.

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Shared Shelf in a minute and a half

Shared Shelf media management software enables institutions to manage, store, use, and publish their institutional and faculty media collections within their institution or publicly on the Web. How? Watch this short video to find out!

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Behind the scenes at ARTstor: Metadata

By Dustin Wees, Director of Metadata and Cataloging

At cocktail parties and in the checkout line at Whole Foods, I’m often asked to explain the difference between data and metadata. I first try “You know the difference between physics and metaphysics, don’t you? Metadata is a lot more philosophical than data.” When that flops—and it usually does—I then try a more prosaic answer: “Metadata is data about data.” In terms of the ARTstor Digital Library, I think of the image as data, and the metadata is the information about the image.

ARTstor’s metadata is an additive aggregation of heterogeneous bits—the equivalent of yellow stickies and typed lists. But we refer to differing schemas and databases, and it comes from various places and in a variety of forms. Typically, our contributors have already created the metadata for their own uses, frequently tailoring the requirements to their point of view. Describing old master paintings, say, uses categories of information that differ from those describing arrowheads or autograph letters.

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UPDATE: Post-Sandy

Umbrella | Dupuy, (Maker) | 1910-1920 | Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mercedes de Acosta; Photographed by Lolly Koon | Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

We are happy to announce that Shared Shelf is up and running, and publishing is now working. We may experience additional stops and starts as infrastructure continues to normalize in Manhattan. If you encounter any issues, please feel free to contact us at support@sharedshelf.org.

ARTstor’s email servers are back up, but we may have lost emails sent while they were down; if you emailed us on Monday or Tuesday you may want to resend. ARTstor phones are still unavailable; contact us by email, Facebook or Twitter.

We thank everyone in the community for your patience.

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NOTICE: Issues after tropical storm Sandy

Fernand Léger | Après le déluge, pg. 61, in the book Les Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud | 1949 | Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

The Digital Library (with primary servers in Colorado) is working normally, but like many others based in the Northeast, ARTstor’s operations are being affected by tropical storm Sandy. Our Shared Shelf service, hosted at an Internet service provider in Manhattan, is down until power returns, but all images and data are backed-up remotely. Our office email and phones are also down, but in the meanwhile you may contact us via Twitter and Facebook. Thanks for your patience.

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Behind the scenes at ARTstor: Light value and color adjustments, part 3

Lily Galib, Production Associate, Image Quality Control, has written a three-part post on the ins-and-outs of light value adjustments. Part 1 covered histograms, part 2 working with Photoshop’s Levels Adjustment Tool and the Curves Adjustment Tool, and part 3 concludes with color.

Color:

Levels and Curves adjustment layers showing the color channel selector. This is where you can select individual color channels to work with if you’re making color adjustments, or RGB if you’re adjusting light values.

When making color adjustments with the Levels Adjustment Tool and the Curves Adjustment Tool, the basic functions are the same (3 set adjustment points for Levels; anchor points for Curves) but you break the histogram down into the individual color channels. There are a few different color working spaces, but the ones you will most commonly encounter are RGB and CMYK. Generally speaking, RGB is used for images that will be viewed on a screen and CMYK is used for print. Digital cameras capture images in RGB, which stands for red, green, and blue. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, which are the ink colors used in printing. I’m only going to deal with RGB here since it is the color space you’re most likely to use. At ARTstor we always work in RGB.

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Four Easy Tricks to Help You Search the ARTstor Digital Library

René Magritte | The Eye, c. 1932/35 | The Art Institute of Chicago Collection | © 2009 C. Herscovici, London / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

There are many ways to find the images you’re looking for in the ARTstor Digital Library; a simple keyword search will often lead you to what you’re looking for, and an advanced search will help narrow the results. Wildcards can help when you don’t remember a precise name or title, or, conversely, when you are looking for something very specific. There are only four to remember:

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