Chinese Collections in Museums on the Web: Current Status, Problems, and Future

Chinese Collections in Museums on the Web: Current
Status, Problems, and Future

Hsin-Liang
Chen

Graduate School of Library and Information
Science, UT-Austin
chen@gslis.uexas.edu

2003

University of Georgia

Athens, Georgia

ACH/ALLC 2003

editor

Eric
Rochester

William
A.
Kretzschmar, Jr.

encoder

Sara
A.
Schmidt

INTRODUCTION
With the development of computing technology, many Chinese museums and
museums with significant Chinese collections have digitized and provided
images of their collections on Web sites. These online resources offer users
around the world access to valuable treasures to learn about Chinese
culture. However, there are obstacles that must be overcome to achieve the
goals of promoting the Chinese heritage and educating new generations.
The purpose of this project is to study how museum practitioners use current
image indexing practices and services to retrieve the images of the Chinese
collections. Several issues, including image needs, information-seeking
strategies, information queries, search functions, display formats and
human-computer interaction are examined in this study.
This paper focuses specifically on the current practices of image management.
The following questions are addressed:
What kind of images do the museums index?
How do the museums index their image collections?
What kind of indexing tools do the museums use?

BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM

CURRENT IMAGE MANAGEMENT AT MUSEUMS AND ART LIBRARIES
Graham (1999) surveyed 60 art libraries in the U.K. The survey included
the important issues of image collections, cataloging and indexing
practices, content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems, and the use of
images. Graham’s study reports on the current management of image
collections and techniques for image and video retrieval in the U.K.
Eakins and Graham (1999) study the current state of the art in CBIR
systems within the U.K. and submit several suggestions to U.K.
governmental agencies, users and managers of image collections, and CBIR
software developers. The Visual Image User Study (VIUS) project at Penn
State University is conducting an extensive and systematic assessment of
its needs for digital image delivery (Pisciotta, et al, 2001). The VIUS
project is working to develop digital picture libraries to serve new
uses of digital images for teaching and research.

IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION NEEDS AND INFORMATION-SEEKING BEHAVIOR TO
SYSTEM DESIGN
Stephenson (1999) examined several cultural heritage image databases and
identified key issues for future improvements. She pointed out that, in
addition to technological challenges, the areas of audience, user
behavior, and use should be addressed as well. According to Stephenson,
museums should examine:
For whom are museums building an image database?
What image databases are museums building?
What are those users’ purposes in using the image
database?
What functionality do the users need to use the
database?

These questions reflect a user-centered design philosophy which assists
database designers understand their users thoroughly.

Defining the primary user group

One of the major goals of an online image database is to break the
barriers of time differences, geographical locations, and limited
physical access to materials. This brings up a critical question:
who is the user? The online database is likely to serve a diverse
group of users: local and remote users, experienced and naïve
users, and existing and new users. Different user services are
required for this diverse group of users. Museums should examine the
institutional goals and purposes of their online image databases to
determine the priority of their missions.

Understanding anticipated users

After determining their primary user group, the museums should study
their users. The following questions should be considered:
Goals of designing an online image database
Differences between existing access to the image
collection and the use of the new online image
database
Anticipated users’ behavior in different locations
Selection of surrogates for image indexing and
retrieval
Information architecture of the online image
database

Supporting discovery and retrieval

To use the online image database successfully, the users should have
knowledge of information retrieval in general, subject areas, and
search systems. On the other hand, the museums should investigate
the following factors:
Indexing standards such as metadata
Query analysis
Effectiveness and efficiency of indexing tools and
methods
Multi-dimensional indexing and retrieval methods
Users’ capabilities
User support and training

Supporting functionality

New functions may be created to facilitate users’ search strategies.
To achieve such goals, studies on interface design, human-computer
interaction, and users’ information-seeking behavior should be
conducted. Different tools may be required by special users and
environments.

Other challenges

In addition to the above key issues, the museums also face several
challenges:
lack of communication among museums;
lack of indexing standards and tools; and
lack of translation standards of Chinese into western
languages.

Chinese museums and museums with significant Chinese collections
should form a consortium to establish communication and to develop
collaboration. Many western museums have begun those efforts. The
Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) is one of those consortiums, but
its image collections only have about 6,000 works from Asian
cultures (AMICO, 2001). The lack of indexing standards and tools is
the same challenge for all museums. Most museums either develop
their own indexing standards and tools or do not have adequate
professional personnel to manage their image collections (CLIR,
1999; Graham, 1999). Regarding translation standards, although
American libraries started using Pinyin as the standard romanization
scheme for Chinese characters on October 1, 2000 (RLG, 2000), many
museums may not be aware of this change and may still use the
Wade-Giles system. These challenges are important to the development
of image collections.

METHODOLOGY

PARTICIPANTS
Six museums were selected for this study based on the size and diversity
of their Chinese collections or their image management. The six
participating museums were in the states of California, Illinois,
Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Washington, D.C.

PROCEDURE

Pre-visit questionnaire

A set of self-administered questionnaires was used to collect
librarians’ views on cataloging/indexing practices, the functions of
new image management systems, and the use of images. The
questionnaires were distributed to librarians before an on-site
visit and were collected between January and April 2002.

Follow-up phone interview

After all respondents answered the questionnaires, the investigator
examined the questionnaires and conducted phone interviews with the
respondents for unclear answers and in-depth information. The
investigator identified several key people for observations and
interviews when visiting museums.

On-site visit

Based on the knowledge gained from the questionnaires and phone
interviews, on-site visits were conducted between June and August
2002. The investigator observed librarians and museum practitioners’
image seeking behavior and also interviewed those people for further
understanding of their search behavior. The investigator interviewed
museum administrators to obtain their expectations for digital image
management in the mission of the museum.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
According to the questionnaires, observations, and interviews, the
investigator reports on the current status, problems, and future of image management:
Current Status: all six museums have
been digitizing the Chinese collections. Photographic prints,
photographic negatives, and transparencies/slides (35 mm) are the
most popular formats. All the museums have used or purchased a
computer-based image management system to organize the digital
images and related information.
Problems: most museums did not have
comprehensive records in the past, so they have spent substantial
amounts of their budgets and people-power to establish basic records
or re-enter data for the digital images. Their conventional
cataloging and indexing practices are not suitable or transferable
for the new image management system. Image management systems used
by the six museums are not able to accommodate the features of the
Chinese collections and their records. Most image management systems
are not metadata/XML ready, which means that the expansion of the
systems onto the Web may be limited. Each museum has its unique
institutional structure, which hinders the workflow of image
management and a lack of communication and collaboration exists
among museums departments.
Future: the development of the
indexing schema is critical to the management of digital images and
to the museum practitioners and on-line users. Image management
systems should be enhanced with the standards of metadata/XML, etc.
for the Web-based environment.

Regarding the image-seeking behavior of museum practitioners, and the
administration's expectations of digital images, the investigator will
report the findings of these issues in the future.

REFERENCES

Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO)

(access September, 2001)

Council on Library and Information Resources

Scholarship, instruction, and libraries at the turn of
the century: Results from five task forces of learned societies and
the Council on Library and Information Resources

Washington, D.C.
The Council
1999

E.
P.
Eakins

M.
E.
Graham

Content-based image retrieval: A report to the JISC
Technology Application Programme

1999

[Online]:

M.
E.
Graham

The description and indexing of images: Report of a
survey of ARLIS members, 1998/99

1999

[Online]. Available:

H.
Pisciotta

R.
Brisson

E.
Ferrin

M.
Dooris

A.
Spink

Penn State Visual Image User Study

D-Lib Magazine

July/August

2001

URL: (access September 2001).

Research Libraries Group (RLG)

Library of Congress, other US libraries join
international community on use of Pinyin

2000

URL: (access
September, 2001)..

C.
Stephenson

“Recent developments in cultural heritage image
databases: directions for user-centered design

Library-Trends

48
2
410-437
1999