Ways of obtaining content from the AMICO Library during the 1998/1999 Testbed year

USER DOWNLOADING OF JPEGS AND TEXT - The Testbed interface allows users at participating institutions to find and display text and JPEG images and save them locally, one at a time. Thumbnail, Snapshot, Inspection, and Presentation sizes of any image may be saved using the browser "Save Image As" function; displays of the two largest sizes -- Inspection and Presentation -- will include a link for downloading the image, image metadata, and textual description of the work together.

USER ORDERING OF SELECTED TIFFS - In addition, the Testbed interface will provide a way for users to order TIFF images for individual works retrieved through the interface. RLG will provide the TIFF images to a technical contact at each Testbed institution (in the form of an HTML page of thumbnails and tombstone text, with FTP links for the TIFF files) on a weekly cycle. The institutional contact will notify the user who ordered the TIFF files and make them available.

LOCAL MOUNTING OF THE ENTIRE LIBRARY - During the Testbed year, testbed institutions can obtain the complete distribution of TIFF files, cataloging data (with links to the TIFF image files), and image metadata for the TIFF files, for local processing or mounting. TIFF images, image metadata, and cataloging data will be distributed on 2 DLT tapes, at a price that recovers the cost (somewhere in the $250 neighborhood).

TIFF OR JPEG? - The images provided by the museums were uncompressed TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) images. RLG derived images, optimized for online delivery, in various sizes. Most of the images provided by the museums were 1024x768 pixels. The "presentation" size image is also 1024x768 (you can choose to view this size under Options at the left of the interface screen), while the default "inspection" size is 800x600 pixels. Some of the original images were much smaller than 1024x768 pixels -- in this case they were left at their native size. Some were larger and were reduced to 1024x768. The images available online through the testbed interface are JPEG compressed. During the process of creating the derivative images, an amount of compression judged generally to cause no noticible effects was applied to the files. The main differences in the TIFF and JPEG images are file size. The typical TIFF image is 2.4 MB (some are much larger) and the largest JPEG is typically around 120KB (you could fit about a dozen JPEG images on a diskette, whereas the TIFF images are much larger than a diskette). Also keep in mind that you will need special software to view the TIFF images; the JPEGs display in your browser or in many general software applications. During the testbed year we are especially interested in your feedback about the image quality.