James Conlon

The Visual Media Center celebrates the life and work of our beloved Director, James Conlon, who died after a short illness on July 17, 2009. James joined the Department of Art History and Archaeology to work in the Media Center in the late 1990s; The Media Center had recently been established at a time of exciting change in image technology and in the way we teach Art History. James’s first mandate was to work closely with the archaeologists to develop field missions that would apply newly-gathered digital images to teaching and research projects fostered by members of the faculty—he was particularly active in Africa, Yemen, and Venice, and he participated in the Summer School for Medieval Architecture in the Bourbonnais. He played a key role in our relations with outside agencies like the World Monuments Fund and Save Venice.

With the reorganization of the Media Center after 2003, James Conlon began to assume a critical leadership role, soon becoming its director. This was not a situation where the incumbent could simply follow existing protocol: given the newness of the institution and the continuing bewildering changes in the field, it was necessary to apply ingenuity and vision to the continuing reinvention of the job. In his daily work the director must move seamlessly amongst four disparate groups: members of the faculty who need digital images for teaching and a great deal of technical support; the Columbia University Libraries with whom we work on the establishment of sustainable database systems; outside agencies like Artstor and Luna, and the various research groups whose projects are served by the Media Center. This is not to mention the extraordinarily difficult task of maintaining physical plant—all the projectors and computers and other electronic systems that serve the Department—as well as organizing and participating in image-gathering expeditions.

James Conlon moved through this challenging set of tasks and responsibilities with extraordinary ingenuity, wisdom, wit, and personal grace. Always poised and courteous; infinitely resourceful, he retained a lively sense of the excitement involved in reshaping the environment in which images are collected, stored and used as tools for teaching and research, as well a sense of pleasure in his interactions with colleagues, faculty and students. He was passionately engaged in his architectural conservation program in Yemen.

James Conlon’s extraordinary contributions and his presence among us were deeply appreciated by his staff, colleagues, and friends in the Department of Art History and Archaeology. He is sorely missed.

• Community and the Built Environment: The Tarim Documentation Poject
• Nature, Heritage, and Spatial Technologies of Fear
• Shaping the Earth: Photographs of the Earthen Building Traditions of Mali and Yemen
  
  
  

Caleb Smith
Director
Caleb manages image production, from taking scanning requests to cataloguing. He has a managerial role in the instruction of students and faculty with image scanning, retrieval, and presentation. He manages the maintenance of the student computer lab and classrooms, and is knowledgeable in field photography. Caleb graduated from the University of New Mexico with degrees in History and Fine Arts, and has worked in libraries at Harvard and Columbia for over ten years. He is also a tour guide, teacher, and writer for the Encyclopedia of New York City, and is completing a Masters in American Studies at Columbia, where his research emphasizes urban history, architecture and culture.

• New York City Walk
• Encyclopedia of New York City
  
  

820–825 Schermerhorn Hall, MC 5517
1190 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, New York 10027
212.854.3044
fax: 212.854.7329
cs2044@columbia.edu

 

Cassy Juhl
Digital Resources Curator
Cassy Juhl graduated from Tufts University with concentrations in both Classics and Art History. Her particular areas of interest were the art and life in the Roman Provinces and 19th century French art. Upon her graduation she moved to Talloires, France where she worked for Tufts University’s academic and conference center. More recently, she comes to us from Harvard’s Slides and Digital Imaging Department where she specialized in digital imaging and slide production. In her capacity as Assistant Curator, Cassy is available for help with digital image scanning, image retrieval and powerpoint basics. She is also well versed in field photography and QuickTime capture and processing.

820–825 Schermerhorn Hall, MC 5517
1190 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, New York 10027
212.854.3044
fax: 212.854.7329
cj2141@columbia.edu

 

Jim Hall
Educational Technologist