Teaching Art History Digitally at Columbia

Digital Images
The Digital Programs Division of the University Library in conjunction with the Visual Media Center in the Dept. of Art History and Archaeology is developing a digital repository of fine arts and architecture images for teaching and research. The Library collection is titled The Columbia Image Bank: History of Art and Architecture. The Dept. of Art History and Archaeology has additional images available as well.

The Best way to access these collections is by downloading and installing the Luna Insight application. The application will give you full access to the collection. A web-based version is also available, but its functions are limited.

Download Luna Insight

For the Luna password and any other questions, please contact James Conlon, Caleb Smith,or Cassy Juhl.


Additional Digital Image Resources


ArtDaily
The First Art Newspaper on the Net. A good source of images with consistantly strong quality.

www.artdail.org


Aluka
Aluka is an international, collaborative initiative building an online digital library of scholarly resources from and about Africa. The name, 'Aluka,' is derived from a Zulu word meaning 'to weave', reflecting Aluka’s mission to connect resources and scholars from around the world. The Aluka website includes a wide variety of high-quality scholarly materials contributed by Aluka’s partners, ranging from archival documents, periodicals, books, reports, manuscripts, and reference works, to three-dimensional models, maps, oral histories, plant specimens, photographs, and slides.

www.aluka.org


American Memory Project, the Library of Congress
American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America, serving the public as a resource for education and lifelong learning.

memory.loc.gov/ammem/about/index.html


Archnet
ArchNet is an international online community for architects, planners, urban designers, landscape architects, conservationists, and scholars, with a focus on Muslim cultures and civilisations. Archnet's digital libraries are an excellent source of images and scholarly texts.

www.archnet.org


ARTstor
ARTstor is a non-profit initiative, founded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with a mission to use digital technology to enhance scholarship, teaching and learning in the arts and associated fields. The ARTstor Digital Library Charter Collection is: A repository of hundreds of thousands of digital images and related data; The tools to actively use those images; and A restricted usage environment that seeks to balance the rights of content providers with the needs and interests of content users.

www.artstor.org/


Compass: The British Musueum
Welcome to COMPASS, a database of around 5000 objects selected from the huge range of the Museum's collections.

www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/

The Real & the Virtual: Representing Architectural Time & Space
This History of Architecture Web site is designed to support undergraduate education, from introductory art and architectural history surveys to advanced courses on specific art historical periods and themes. The project has been funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Education Programs, with additional support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Office of the Provost, Columbia University. This site includes over 1,200 QuickTime Virtual Reality Nodes.

http://www.learn.columbia.edu/ha/

Mnemosyne
The Mnemosyne: Visual Culture Database houses more than 45,000 images of the fine arts, architecture, and archaeology with a wide selection of both Western and Non-Western subjects. We named the database Mnemosyne (pronunciation), the daughter of Uranus and Gaea, the personification of Memory, and, most importantly, the mother of the nine Muses, patron goddesses of the arts. The scope of the database reflects the curricula of the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and Barnard College.

www.learn.columbia.edu/mnemosyne


New York Public Library: The Digital Gallery
NYPL Digital is your gateway to The Library’s rare and unique collections in digitized form. NYPL Digital includes searchable databases like In Motion: The African American Migration Experience and NYPL Digital Gallery, online exhibitions such as Before Victoria, text from the Yizkor (Holocaust Memorial) Books, and more.

www.nypl.org/digital/index.htm

Perry-Castañeda Libray Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin
A collection of digitized maps, both historical and contemporary, from around the world.

www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/

World Heritage List QTVR Tour
In addition to the VMC's own History of Architecture site, the UNESCO World Heritage List has links to many high quality QTVRs. The nodes are organized as nodes on a world map, or they may be reached through the individual site pages of the list itself.

Map | World Heritage List

Pedagogical Resources

New technology presents us with one constant, namely, change. Accepting that challenge, we are learning to use technology to accommodate the teaching, learning and research needs of faculty and students in ways that meet and exceed their expectations. Our first question when approaching new projects remains the same, that is, how do we create digital teaching and learning tools that are effective both in and out of the classroom, useful beyond the immediate needs of individual courses, yet remain flexible for future developments as part of a long-term strategy for accumulating digital assets?

In taking on this challenge, we have developed a system that includes digital image collection and delivery and the development of teaching and learning tools. We are collecting and digitizing core groups of images for major subject areas based on curricular needs. We maintain these images in a database management system, at present about 12,000 entries, and use them to generate image pages for individual course Web sites. Faculty are increasingly interested in creating digital teaching environments that move beyond course-specific Web sites to serve entire subject areas. As undergraduate and graduate students advance through the educational process, we can offer rich Web sites that collect and organize a broad array of resources designed under the direction of our faculty.

For more information, contact James Conlon .

Fieldwork

Places of cultural significance and their intangible immediacy simply cannot be reproduced on campus. Teaching and learning in context has its own unique advantages as well. It transforms knowledge from static information to a dynamic partnership by which student and teacher apply critical inquiry and exercise newly learned information.

For these reasons, the Columbia University experience extends well beyond the Morningside Heights campus. From the Historic Preservation program’s work on the neighborhoods of New York City to faculty-directed fieldwork in Egypt, France, and Yemen, Columbia University is part of a truly global community. The Visual Media Center provides technical and administrative support that translates these individual research interests into a broader learning environment for our students.

For more information, contact James Conlon.



Web Site Design
The Visual Media Center develops a variety of digital teaching and learning tools for the Columbia University community ranging from the art and architecture of the ancient world through contemporary art. We also provide online resources for academic journals, cultural institutions and other organizations. Our level of involvement may range from consultation services to the development and sustained maintenance of a site.

For more information, contact Pilar Peters.



Consultation and Technical Advising

Our staff provides support to the university community on a number of technical issues. In particular, we are happy to help in the preparation of digital imaing for both electronic and print publication. We are also available to graduate students and faculty members for consultation on the use of digital resources in the classroom and for academic presentations.

For more information, contact James Conlon.

View online press release.

Slide and Photgraph Collection

The Visual Media Center also includes a collection of 35mm slides and photographs. For information about hours and access, click here.