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Europeana and Google Arts and culture - doing cross-collection searches about a subject that she’s just learning about
Using some of the main agencies [WHO?] - starting to get a lot of the same images everywhere, “they are gobbling each other up” so I hope ppl se the value of sites like europeana
I’ll check the copyright situation first - to get out copyright requests first
DACS - represent most major 20th and 21st century artists and designers, Picasso etc; estates have often assigned the rights to DACS (Matisse for example, though he’s coming out of copyright soon which is very exciting!)
I use umbrella sites like Europeana to get a feel for the subject matter
Key - how suitable the image is with the text; she asks for the actual text - buildings and sculptures, where the text mentions only a part of it that she’d zoom in on with the image
Size and quality of the image you can get, and how that matches the output (e.g. full-page bled colour images - book is black and white with plate sections and quality paper- so they have to be super high quality and ‘ping’); sometimes printing in black and white it can ‘turn to mush’ - quality assessment and how that matches the brand guidelines of the lcient
Umbrella sites are hugely useful - e.g. types in ‘Jules Verne’ and then refines using the filters, and just see what it throws up and follows the sources form there - it’s actually quite a good way of discovering new sources [HOW DOES SHE SAVE IMAGES - DOES SHE HAVE GALLERIES OR DOES SHE DOWNLOAD DIRCETLYDIRECTLY - she takes screenshots first, and then downloads them if they’re chosen]
ArtUK, Digital public Library of America, ‘Openverse’ and other new creative commons sites; Google arts and culutres cultures curated stories are quite good, “I don’t know if Europeana does that” - “in my head Europeana is a database, whereas Google AC I perceive that as being more exhibition or editoiral editorial led”
About her use of Europeana
I like the Europeana interface - it’s nice and clean, I already know what i want to search so I start with the search box; I like the serendipity as you come across things; item page and metadata is very clearly laid out and easy to use; the one-stop-shop umbrella site is so useful - GETTY and [ALIMY - I’m sure they’re just scraping websites which is really sneaky] are gobbling up a lot of stuff that they shouldnt shouldn't be and motiesing monetising it - it’s useful to get back to the quality of the images and where they really are; you’re getting it from the horse’s mouth on europeana; be able to trust the information you’ve got in front of you; it’s really important to have the transparency of where it’s coming from and I trust Europeana
What could be improved on Europeana - I didn’t know about all the other things I’ve never used before; I’d have spent a bit more time playing around with these other features; I mainly use it as a trustworthy search engine that returns high quality results; it’s a useful gateway into other portals - I go to Europeana first and then journey into other sites (Gallica?)
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“I want to things as quickly as possible because they’re not paying me enough to fannby fanny about”
I often take screengrabs first in a proposal to show the client - I want to see the image and the accompanying info (the metadata) - the title, the library/source that it’s from, and any reference number (url), other stuff in the ‘Good to know’ tab and sometimes even the ‘all metadata’ table; also file size, cost, etc.
I come to Europeana to start the first wishlist of items; then makes a powerpoint with the proposal of them; if they’re selected by the client I might come back and download it; “where’s the best place I can get a good quality file for as little money as possible”
National Library of France - I know them and what their costs are
Many of the institutions have really long turnaround times for them to send the high quality files; some of them you can get it instantly for free
Getty is trying to tie people up with a subscription model, which my clients have to sign up for to use the images for their boos; they have to pay thousands of pounds for a year-long subscription
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