Westphal Slide Library FAQ
Faculty needed a centralized digital archive that would allow them to access, search, upload and download digital presentation material for teaching purposes. In response to this need, Design & Imaging Studios set out to implement a college-wide digital archive system to encourage the usage and sharing of digital educational resources. The result will be the shift away from older technology currently still in use (e.g., slide projectors) toward digital preservation and organization of printed materials (and potentially digitally produced still and moving images) and the increased sharing of educational resources throughout the college via an online digital slide database.
- Why go digital?
- Over time color shifting, color fading, delaminating of the slide mount and mold is inevitable. Sharing slides is difficult. Digital collections are easy to share without the risk of misplacing shared materials. Image modification software can be used to improve aging and damaged slides.
- What is the status of the Slide Library?
- Our project is still in its development stage. To date, we have developed the necessary guildelines to assist faculty and staff in preparing their collections for submission to the database. Building the database to house the images is a challenging process. We are currently working to design a backend database. The backend database will be used by our staff to migrate archived material into front-end databases such as ARTstor and MDID. For an overview of our project feel free to download an overview of the project by using the following link: Westphal Slide Library Presentation