1. Sara Kuzmenka and Emma Gaedje
From Shelf to Screen
Sara Kuzmenka and Emma Gaedje

2. As a team in the Fall 2017, we began collecting data in Special Collections, searching for books, printed materials, ephemera, and other various materials as a resource to inspire Visual Communications seniors for a degree capstone project. The outcome of ART 403 Degree Project is to incorporate our Special Collections’ research into the new BFA Visual Communications curriculum in Spring During the school year, we worked closely with our faculty advisor, Martha Carothers.

3. Currently...
students use image based reference tools, such as Pinterest and Designspiration, to gather inspiration for projects. On these platforms, a term, such as posters, can be searched and all relevant images are displayed.
Designspiration
Pinterest

4. However...
that is not the case on any of the library’s search features. It’s not image based; everything is text based. This works well for other types of research but when looking for visual inspiration, text just doesn’t spark the interest of students to research further.

5. That’s why our goal is to...
create an image based website to help get students familiar and inspired by what Special Collections has to offer. Based off of students current habits when it comes to doing research, we want to make our website mainly focused on the images, as well as, making it as user friendly as possible.

6. Our data
Over the last year, we have collected hundreds of images and corresponding information about various pieces in Special Collections.

7. An example of the data we collected on each item

8. examples of images

9. How we want to display our data
We want our website to be mainly focused on the images, the verbal descriptions that are currently being used just don’t give an art student what is needed for that spark of inspiration. We want the pieces to speak for themselves and be able to be clicked on to find further information, which in turn would allow students to then come in and view said item in Special Collections with a better understanding of what’s being pulled for them. Also knowing how students use other websites, we want our site to have tags that can easily be searched. Such as a typography tag that would then bring up all things tagged typography.

10. Website Housing Options
Omeka- what the library currently uses
Tumblr- image heavy platform
Airtable- database/ spreadsheet mix

11. Omeka
We started by looking into Omeka as a program to house our website. It houses all of Special Collections existing exhibits and would fit our database of information we’ve already collected. However, the volume of content we’ve collected would be too much for us to process through the Omeka program.

12. Tumblr
Next we looked at Tumblr as a possible platform because it fit our needs for an image heavy layout and would allow for the use of tags and captions. However, after testing the platform and the themes available to use, we found that the site was missing the capability to process the metadata that goes with each item.

13. What a Tumblr post might have looked like

14. Airtable
We’re currently looking into a platform called Airtable, a mix between a spreadsheet and a database that would allow us to display a gallery of images each accompanied by their appropriate tags, Delcat links, and related items. This would only require us to fine tune our own spreadsheets and upload the images before we can test the site with fellow students.

15. In Conclusion
Currently we are working on finding out if Airtable is the best option for housing this project. It has the support of Library Staff and with research into how the platform works, it seems like it is going to work the best for students as well. As stated in our original proposal, this project will continue into the Fall semester until all our data is implemented on a user-friendly platform.