Re: Subject categories for museum website
Hello everyone, A recent article in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology reports on a study examining the characteristics of user queries in image retrieval. For example, the researcher might categorize a participant's search need as a need to find a specific person, object, or event in images. The study looked at natural language statements and the terminology actually used when searching an image retrieval system. This study also asked participants about the relevance of the textual descriptions accompanying the retrieved images. That is, researchers asked users to rate the importance or relevance of (our) textual descriptions. (Do the textual descriptions accompanying the images help you decide if the image is relevant to your needs?) Note: Participants in this study are specialists in American history and the image collection is the Library of Congress's American Memory project. The article also provides a brief review of other recent studies on user queries in image retrieval. The article might interest those of us -- like Marla and her colleagues at SFMOMA -- planning and providing online access. Here is the citation: Youngok Choi and Edie M. Rasmussen, "Searching for Images: The Analysis of Users' Queries for Image Retrieval in American History," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 54, no. 6 (2003): 498-511. Layna White Collections Information Manager Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts UCLA Hammer Museum Co-chair, MCN Standards/Controlled Vocabulary SIG 310-443-7078 lwh...@arts.ucla.edu www.hammer.ucla.edu -Original Message- From: Marla Misunas [mailto:mmisu...@sfmoma.org] Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 11:16 AM To: mcn_mc...@listserver.americaneagle.com Subject: Subject categories for museum website Hi everyone, At SFMOMA we are continuing to work on getting our collections information on-line. In the past, in addition to searchable label information in-house, we have used only the most basic keywords to identify objects, like painting, drawing, photograph. But we want to give visitors other ways into the collections and we could use some advice. Do you have broad categories that you use at the top level of your website's collections hierarchy? The ones that always come to mind are things like landscape, portrait, abstract; or religious art, historical scenes, etc.; but surely there's more creative thinking out there. Any comments or ideas are welcome, including ideas of other websites we might visit. thanks! Marla Misunas Manager, Collections Database Collections Information and Access San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 415 357 4186 voice 415 947 1186 fax http://www.sfmoma.org Board Member, Museum Computer Network Conference Chair, Las Vegas, 2003 http://www.mcn.edu --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: lwh...@arts.ucla.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Re: Subject categories for museum website
Marla, I operate a portal site to a wide range of "museum" topics .. with the primary mission of helping the public discover and interact with museums online. - It's evolved iteratively over the years (online since Dec 1999) .. and is more mish-mash of topics than logical progression .. however it has generally received positive reviews in the media .. (Most recently, the New York Times claimed it to be the most user-friendly of the "meta-museum" sites). The most fundamental hierarchy? - Art, History, Science .. then some suggestive options are presented from there. - (Mind you, the VAST majority of the "fresh" traffic to the site comes from search engines that have crawled the many sub-pages .. and that is a very important consideration when designing a collections or other branching topic directory .. but also another topic for discussion in its own right.) http://www.museumstuff.com -- Roy Hemmat Director, Discovery Media http://www.MuseumStuff.com ** 1000's of museums and educational links now available through our award-winning gateway > Do you have broad categories that you use at the top level of your website's > collections hierarchy? .. Any comments or ideas are > welcome, including ideas of other websites we might visit. thanks! > > Marla Misunas --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Re: Subject categories for museum website
For a more fun/less academic approach you could use something like the questions that Komar and Melamid used in their "Most Wanted Painting" project, where they created desirable paintings based on responses to survey questions like What's your favorite color? What's your second favorite color? Do you prefer wild or domestic animals? What size painting do you like? etc. See http://www.diacenter.org/km/ for links to the actual survey questions and images of the resulting paintings. Of course the paintings all ended up sort of funny, which was the point, but it would make a fun web project, to tie the questions to an actual collection. Or you could do it without the tongue-in-cheekness, although that might be harder. At 11:15 AM 3/25/2003 -0800, you wrote: Hi everyone, At SFMOMA we are continuing to work on getting our collections information on-line. In the past, in addition to searchable label information in-house, we have used only the most basic keywords to identify objects, like painting, drawing, photograph. But we want to give visitors other ways into the collections and we could use some advice. Do you have broad categories that you use at the top level of your website's collections hierarchy? The ones that always come to mind are things like landscape, portrait, abstract; or religious art, historical scenes, etc.; but surely there's more creative thinking out there. Any comments or ideas are welcome, including ideas of other websites we might visit. thanks! Marla Misunas Manager, Collections Database Collections Information and Access San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 415 357 4186 voice 415 947 1186 fax http://www.sfmoma.org Board Member, Museum Computer Network Conference Chair, Las Vegas, 2003 http://www.mcn.edu --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: matt.mor...@brooklynmuseum.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Re: Subject categories for museum website
Marla, Do you track your web visitors? Does someone keep a record of what people have been typing into your main Search box? You might find a list of frequently searched-for subjects there. Barbara Palmer Assistant Registrar (Collection Information System) Powerhouse Museum --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Re: Subject categories for museum website
I've been also thinking about a similar project, but haven't gotten into those details yet. check these sites: www.lacma.org www.TheWalters.org www.nga.gov www.umich.edu/~umma www.siris.si.edu are just a couple to check! I think somewhere on the web, maybe even linked to the MCN site, is a list of Museums with collections online. Best of luck! Molly ~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~ Molly Hutton Marder Assistant Registrar & Collections Database Manager Chrysler Museum of Art 245 W. Olney Road Norfolk, VA 23510-1587 757.965.2030 mhut...@chrysler.org http://www.chrysler.org > -Original Message- > From: Marla Misunas [SMTP:mmisu...@sfmoma.org] > Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 2:16 PM > To: mcn-l@mcn.edu > Subject: Subject categories for museum website > > Hi everyone, > At SFMOMA we are continuing to work on getting our collections information > on-line. In the past, in addition to searchable label information in-house, > we have used only the most basic keywords to identify objects, like painting, > drawing, photograph. But we want to give visitors other ways into the > collections and we could use some advice. > > Do you have broad categories that you use at the top level of your website's > collections hierarchy? The ones that always come to mind are things like > landscape, portrait, abstract; or religious art, historical scenes, etc.; but > surely there's more creative thinking out there. Any comments or ideas are > welcome, including ideas of other websites we might visit. thanks! > > Marla Misunas > Manager, Collections Database > Collections Information and Access > San Francisco Museum of Modern Art > 415 357 4186 voice > 415 947 1186 fax > http://www.sfmoma.org > Board Member, Museum Computer Network > Conference Chair, Las Vegas, 2003 > http://www.mcn.edu > > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: mhut...@chrysler.org > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Re: Subject categories for museum website
We use the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials: Subject terms http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/tgm1/ as a guide whenever we're looking for good new terms to add to our own thesaurus of subject terms. We've also created a branch in our thesaurus called "Western iconography" which we're using for themes that come up often in our collection. Electronic Cataloging Initiative Autry Museum of Western Heritage 4700 Western Heritage Way Los Angeles, California 90027 (323) 667-2000 x201 http:\\www.autry-museum.org >>> mmisu...@sfmoma.org 03/25/03 11:15AM >>> Hi everyone, At SFMOMA we are continuing to work on getting our collections information on-line. In the past, in addition to searchable label information in-house, we have used only the most basic keywords to identify objects, like painting, drawing, photograph. But we want to give visitors other ways into the collections and we could use some advice. Do you have broad categories that you use at the top level of your website's collections hierarchy? The ones that always come to mind are things like landscape, portrait, abstract; or religious art, historical scenes, etc.; but surely there's more creative thinking out there. Any comments or ideas are welcome, including ideas of other websites we might visit. thanks! Marla Misunas Manager, Collections Database Collections Information and Access San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 415 357 4186 voice 415 947 1186 fax http://www.sfmoma.org Board Member, Museum Computer Network Conference Chair, Las Vegas, 2003 http://www.mcn.edu --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlach...@autry-museum.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Subject categories for museum website
Hi everyone, At SFMOMA we are continuing to work on getting our collections information on-line. In the past, in addition to searchable label information in-house, we have used only the most basic keywords to identify objects, like painting, drawing, photograph. But we want to give visitors other ways into the collections and we could use some advice. Do you have broad categories that you use at the top level of your website's collections hierarchy? The ones that always come to mind are things like landscape, portrait, abstract; or religious art, historical scenes, etc.; but surely there's more creative thinking out there. Any comments or ideas are welcome, including ideas of other websites we might visit. thanks! Marla Misunas Manager, Collections Database Collections Information and Access San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 415 357 4186 voice 415 947 1186 fax http://www.sfmoma.org Board Member, Museum Computer Network Conference Chair, Las Vegas, 2003 http://www.mcn.edu --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
