Web Launch of IDEAS, an Image Database to Enhance Asian Studies

by Karil Kucera, Luce Assistant Professor of Asian Visual Culture, Departments of Asian Studies and Art & Art History

Thanks to a grant from the Midwest Instructional Technology Center [MITC], the Image Database to Enhance Asian Studies [IDEAS] has successfully unified digitizing efforts already in progress at four ACM/GLCA campuses into a shared searchable database. IDEAS is now available on the world-wide web [http://ideas.midwest-itc.org/], making it the first multi-institutional, interdisciplinary, pan-Asian searchable database in the country. IDEAS focuses on the generally underrepresented area of Asia in an attempt to make multi-media materials more widely available for specialists and non-specialists alike. Fall 2005 has seen the implementation of usability testing, while in the upcoming Spring 2006 term, members at the various institutions will host outreach workshops for faculty and staff.

The IDEAS project is one of the initiatives that grew out of the Digital Imaging Symposium at DePauw University, August 2003, sponsored by MITC. The St Olaf College component of the project, Asian Takeout, has now been merged with three other collections to create IDEAS.  Initially, IDEAS utilized several existing collections of digital still images and audio files. Eventually, the database will include a range of digital assets from a variety of disciplines, including still images, along with video clips, sound recordings, and scanned text documents.

The goal of the IDEAS project is to establish a database specific to Asia that will augment the limited resources in the field of Asian Studies available on any given liberal arts campus. In some cases, IDEAS will provide digital information that, by virtue of its highly specialized nature, is not readily available on the Internet or in print. For example, there may be documentation of an Indian religious rite that is vital material, but too specialized to ever attract the interest or support of a publisher.  A Japanese garden may require numerous images to convey the dynamic experience of changes over time or through movement, but texts usually present only one static image.  The same is true of most works of three dimensional art and culture.

Most of our collections will also offer users the wisdom about selection and sequencing that experts using these materials can bring to these resources. It is hoped that IDEAS will create a model that could be employed by faculty and students in virtually any academic discipline for the purpose of sharing scarce or unusual information resources across campuses. The scope of the IDEAS project will allow for the continued addition of new materials over time, and it is our plan to expand the present four institutional collections to include works from four more schools by the end of 2006. 

Present participants in the IDEAS project include:

Karil Kucera, St Olaf College, Assistant Professor, Asian Studies & Art History, Project Leader
Kris MacPherson, St Olaf College, Asian Studies Reference Librarian & Associate Professor
Sarah Withee, Colorado College, Academic Technology Specialist
Steve Lawson, Colorado College, Humanities Librarian
Mike Thiedeman, Earlham College, Professor of Art
Mark Pearson, Earlham College, Coordinator of Academic Computing
Amy Bryant, Earlham College, Information Technology Reference Librarian
Cathy Benton, Lake Forest College, Lecturer in Religion
Diane Snedden, Lake Forest College, Library and Information Technology

For information on how to become more involved with IDEAS, please contact ideas@midwest-itc.org or any of the participating members directly.