FALL 1998 AMICO USE AT WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Overview and Interim Report
                             
During the Fall 1998 semester, the AMICO Library was
 successfully incorporated into two art history courses at
 Washington University:  "Gianlorenzo Bernini and the
 Development of Baroque Sculpture" and "Realism and
 Impressionism".  

The Project Team held informational and instructional sessions
 for involved faculty and also worked with the classes
 throughout the semester to address usage issues.  In
 addition, the database was available to interested faculty,
 students and staff via the University Libraries on-line
 resources.  See <http://library.wustl.edu/~amico/> for more
 information.

What follows are general themes identified by users and the
 Project Team in discussions about the success of the AMICO
 Library in its first semester.  


* IMAGE QUALITY AND QUANTITY                                 

There are some general issues of quality that should be
 addressed: better documentation, improved image coverage both
 in terms of image quality and number of images per object,
 and more attention to photography, particularly in
 photographing 2-D and 3-D color objects.                   
             
In the Bernini course, many students were critical of the
 quality of included sculpture images.  One student commented,
 "Sculpture is a medium that deserves to be viewed in the
 round, and when one sees an object from only one viewpoint it
 can be rather deceiving."                
             
Many students and faculty expressed two additional concerns
 about images of sculpture: 1)that detail shots were not
 included, and 2)that the lighting was not conducive to study.
 Students faulted the severe frontal lighting that inhibited
 the ability to see sculptural details.  More contrast in the
 lighting would have been helpful.                           

                               
* CATALOGING

The more broadly defined the material included in AMICO, the
 greater the need for proper cataloging.  Before the database
 grows exponentially, an organized system for cataloging
 (including subject heading and AAT authorities) should be
 developed. 


* DOCUMENTATION

Many students wanted more documentation, including
 bibliographies, links to related web-sites, statements about
 the artists or provenance of the piece, etc.  


* TIME REQUIREMENTS

As students in the "Realism and Impressionism" course pointed
 out, users must feel confident that time invested in
 searching AMICO for a class project or other research will be
 time well spent. Often, students creating virtual exhibitions
 for that course went to a book to get the quality they
 desired.  Or they would find an image in a book and then
 search the AMICO Library for that particular item.
                
                                                
* QUALITY VS. QUANTITY 

Improving not only the number of works included, but also the
 associated documentation and the quality of the presentation
 of the works, is crucial to the development of AMICO.  A key
 question revolves around how to balance the tradeoff between
 quantity and quality, i.e., more images immediately available
 that would be upgraded at a future point versus fewer images
 that are of high quality (and have good documentation)from
 the beginning.  

On behalf of Washington University Users and Project Team,

Karen S. Croneis
Testbed Project Coordinator
Washington University
St. Louis, Missouri