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from the issue of September 27, 2007
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Slide curator guides collection into digital world
BY TROY FEDDERSON, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Jennifer Haley grew up adoring art.
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| | | ART HISTORIAN - Jennifer Haley, curator of the Art and Art History slide library, is working to convert the collection into the digital age. More than 11,000 of the 108,000 slides have been converted. Photo by Troy Fedderson/University Communications.
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Venturing to museums with her mother, the slide curator for the Department of Art and Art History remembers marveling at Michelangelo, screaming with Munch and swinging with Calder. However, she never once imagined a career path chiseled from art history.
"For me, coming to art history was complete serendipity," said Haley, who is the slide curator for the Department of Art and Art History. "I was dancing at the time and attending a community college. I happened to take this art history course - a Renaissance survey led by a professor that was very good - and I just fell in love with the discipline.
"When I stopped dancing, it was already determined in my head what I wanted to do."
The classically trained ballet dancer enrolled in college full time at the age of 23. She earned a bachelor's degree in art history, the npursued her master's and doctorate in the same field at Princeton.
"I'm one of those people who you could call an, "all but the dissertation,'" Haley said. "I do have a master's from Princeton. But I never quite finished my PhD."
In 1991, she came to UNL with her husband - Mark van Roojen, a professor of philosophy - and started teaching art history. Gradually, Haley transitioned from the lecture podium to the Art and Art History slide library in 209 Woods Hall.
| | SLIDE WORK - Mark Bowen, a first-year doctoral student in painting, adjusts a digital scan for the Art and Art History slide library. Photo by Troy Fedderson/University Communications.
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As curator, Haley is responsible for organizing the collection's 108,000 art slides and digital images (along with a handful of videos and DVDs), making them available to the 20 or so art and art history lecturers. Haley and a small covey of student workers also maintain the slides, repairing or replacing worn images.
"Parts of the collection itself are 70 or more years old," Haley said. "We even have some slides that are glass. I'm not talking about glass mounted - these are actual glass slides."
On the other end of the technology spectrum, Haley is also gradually building the stock of digital images, through purchases and scans of existing materials.
In the last three years, Haley has only purchased digital reproductions - including the recent addition of 2,843 high-quality images. The digitizing process was bolstered by a $22,500 grant in the first year of the Initiative for Teaching and Learning Excellence. That project (Visual Resources/University Library Digital Instruction Initiative) was a joint effort between the College of Fine and Performing Arts and the University Libraries.
"In terms of technology, I've really seen this position change in the last 15 years," Haley said. "For the last three years, our focus has been getting images digitized and re-cataloged for our lecturers."
Thus far, 11,347 images are available in a digital format.
Haley credited Judy Winkler, visual resources manager for the Architecture Library, and Judy Johnson, a professor with the University Libraries, for their assistance with the digitizing project.
"I could not have accomplished what we have on this project without those two women," Haley said. "They both have been remarkably helpful."
Haley will continue the digital push, but recognizes that slides will remain an important teaching element for a number of years.
"When I started as an adjunct in art history here, the curator at the time said it didn't matter how we cared for the slides, because within two years everything would be digital," Haley said. "Well, that was 16 years ago. We haven't thrown all the slides away and they're certainly not all digital.
"That change will come, gradually."
And, the ballet dancer who used to tour museums with her mom, is going to enjoy being a part of that technology transition.
"If you aren't lucky enough to frequent the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (Russia) or tour mainland China, you can access all that and more from this room," Haley said. "This place is an open door to the world of art history."
GO TO: ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 27
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Verbatem
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