Message-Id: <mailto:199409090956.EAA18875@library.wustl.edu> Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 09:38:02 WST From: Geoff Rehn <mailto:rehn@CLEO.MURDOCH.EDU.AU> Subject: slide imaging technology To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB <mailto:IMAGELIB@ARIZVM1.BITNET>
The following message was forwarded on to me by Deidre Stanton, the Network Services Librarian at the Murdoch University Library, Murdoch, Western Australia. She asked if I would care to (briefly!) respond.>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 15:43:18 GMT-10
>From: Michael Manning <mailto:M.MANNING@central1.library.uq.oz.au>
>To: mailto:IMAGELIB%ARIZVM1.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU,
> mailto:syslibs@library.adelaide.edu.au
>Subject: slide imaging technology
>
>At the University of Queensland Library we are starting to
>investigate the possibilities for scanning slide collections and
>making them available via networked workstations.
>
>One of the solutions which has been mentioned to us is the Kodak
>Professional Image Library 30 which includes Shoebox PhotoCD Image
>manager, PCD Jukebox Manager and PCD Jukebox 100. We have no idea
>what others may be doing, and would appreciate any guidance or
>suggestions based on your knowledge or experience.
>Michael Manning
>Electronic Information Services Librarian
>Central Library
>University of Queensland phone: +61 7 365 6218
>St. Lucia, Qld Australia 4072 fax: +61 7 365 6888
> email: mailto:m.manning@library.uq.oz.au
------------
In brief response:
Within the Academic Services Unit at Murdoch University, and in conjunction with the School of Veterinary Studies, we have been experimenting with this very question of developing an easy to use and economical system of making digital media available by networked means. This has been done under a 1992-93 National Priority Reserve Fund grant as well as a 1994 Committee for the Advancement of University Teaching grant.
In making digital images available by networked means, you should of course be seeking to implement the standard Internet services such as FTP, Gopher and WWW, rather than restricting your means of distribution to that provided by proprietary means, such as those listed.
We have found that using Kodak PhotoCD technology has been most useful and relatively cost effective, in that a collection of 35mm slides can be readily converted to digital images, in a variety of usable resolutions. We have then retouched and refined these images, to a standard 640x480 resolution, in both GIF and JPEG formats, and uploaded them to an FTP server (cleo.murdoch.edu.au), that is also linked to Murdoch's Gopher server. As well, we have looked at smaller images (320x240) in order to cater for the remote dialup user. The GIf images can also contain textual comment.
In addition, these images are available by the WWW. We have yet to implement searchable forms whereby data could be input and the matching images retrieved.
We have endeavoured to achieve the above by the use of public domain software, both in the network retrieval of the images and their display by the user. Thus, using the Internet services above, the means of access is platform independent.
We will be working more intently in this area over the next few months.
You may wish to point FTP to cleo.murdoch.edu.au in the directory /pub/digital_images to have a look. You will need image viewing sioftware, a collection of PD material being available in this directory.
While our WWW server is very experimental at this stage (meaning I haven't worked on it properly for months!), you can point a WWW browser to the WWW server running on my MacIIvx at work: URL http://134.115.224.48/ or point to Murdoch's Home Page and move from there to the Academic Services Unit WWW server. http://portia.murdoch.edu.au/home.html
I wrote a paper back in January for the 2nd InterNational Interactive Multimedia Symposium titled "The networking of multimedia resources" that may be of interest. This is available by anon FTP to cleo.murdoch.edu.au in /pub/Res-and-Dev with file name rehn-IMMS94-Networking, in MacWord or WinWord format.
I hope this _briefest_ of overviews will help.
Geoff Rehn.
---- Geoff Rehn Lecturer, Educational Technology Academic Service Unit Murdoch University mailto:rehn@cleo.murdoch.edu.au