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Agreement IV-1: DRAFT Core Content Requirements

This version dated August 5, 1997

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1. Premise
A minimal requirements will have to be set for the content of contributions to The AMICO Library. These will refer to text, image and multimedia documentation. Content requirements will be expressed according to the Categories for the Description of Works of Art, the content standards most applicable to the research use of museum documentation.
2. Required Information
The Categories recommended as 'core' will be compared against the MESL Data Dictionary, the Dublin Core, and the content of AMICO Members' documentation systems before a final core is specified. Preliminary analysis indicates the following structured textual information will be required as minimal documentation about a work of art submitted to The AMICO Library.
  1. Object/Work (type)
  2. Classification
  3. Title/Name
  4. Measurements
  5. Materials/techniques
  6. Creation - name, date, place
  7. Copyright
  8. Ownership [current, includes Credit Line]
  9. Related visual documents [an image must be provided; see below]
  10. Cataloging history
  11. Current location [to the museum/gallery level]
3. Additional Access Points
The following Categories were identified as key access points to AMICO Content. Data Enhancement will focus, initially on these Categories. Members are urged to contribute this information if it is available, and to concentrate their own data gathering efforts in these areas:
  1. Styles and periods
  2. Subject matter descriptions
4. Additional "Value-Added" Data
The following additional Categories provide the rich textual data that sets The AMICO Library apart from other collections of cultural heritage documentation:
  1. Condition
  2. Conservation History
  3. Ownership [Provenance]
  4. Context [historical/social/cultural]
  5. Exhibition History
  6. Related Works
  7. Related Textual References
  8. Critical Responses
5. Additional Types of Information
As well as textual descriptions or documents, the quality of The AMICO Library will be greatly enhanced by the contribution of additional kinds of documentation. These may pertain to any of the Content categories listed above.
  1. Associated Documents [rich texts]
  2. Links to related material
  3. Related multimedia data
6. Metadata required for other media
All multimedia documentation should be accompanied by metadata (descriptive information). The Dublin Core should be compared against the following preliminary list of required content and a multimedia metadata requirement specified:
  1. Mode (audio, video, multimedia, 3-D data)
  2. File format
  3. Description
  4. Duration/play time
  5. File Size
  6. Date of Capture
  7. Original medium
  8. Mode of Capture/Conversion
  9. Production data/credits
7. Image Capture Guidelines
Guidelines for the capture of multimedia should be developed. The following represents preliminary thoughts regarding Image Capture Guidelines for The AMICO Library. These are need further research and analysis before they can be considered to reflect the state of the art today. These Guidelines will change over time.
7.1. Table of Contents for Image Capture Guidelines:
a. Accuracy in Capture
  • original photography
  • color references - color bar
  • calibration of various devices
  • quality and purpose
  • scanning at highest resolution possible and sampling
  • cropping
b. Storage and Delivery
  • capture format
  • compression
  • delivery formats
  • object identification
  • version identification
  • file naming conventions
c. Usability
  • accompanying metadata
  • measurements and scale
  • watermarking
  • indexing
7.2. Preliminary recommendations
The following table summarizes very preliminary recommendations regarding image capture, setting a particular output as a target use. This needs significant further research and analysis, but will provide some sense of the order of magnitude involved in meeting various output requirements FOR AMICO.
Thumbnail 13" Screen 17" Screen 21" Screen Data Projection 4x zoom 4"x5" print* 8"x10" print Film Archive
Resolution 160 x 120 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 640x480 800x600 1600 x 1200 4x175x2 5x175x2 8x280x2 10x280x2 4Mx6M
Bit Depth 24 24 24 24 24 24 32+ 32+ 32+
Compression OK OK OK OK OK OK NO NO NO
Film Source 35mm+ 35mm+ 35mm+ 35mm+ 35mm+ 35mm+ 35mm+ 2.25"+ 4"x5"+
Digital Camera Source 160 x 120 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 640x480 800x600 1600 x 1200 1600 x 1200 4M x 6M 4Mx6M
PCD Equiv. base-4 base-4 base-2 base base-2/ base-4 base+4 base+4 base 16 none
Color Space RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB CMYK CMYK RGB

* NOTE: Final reproduction size x screen x 2


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