Last week Leigh Garrett, Director of VADS, presented a session titled ‘Joining the dots: funding and sustaining digital collections’, at the ARLIS/UK & Ireland annual conference, University of Edinburgh. VADS have been conducting research into the sustainability of a wide range of public, commercial and education digital collections as part of the Look-Here! project.

The session participants were invited to consider the state of the national digital art collection; to examine the current state of funding as well as methods adopted to sustain and grow collections; and to reflect upon how this knowledge can be applied to develop practices and policies to ensure our collections survive and prosper whatever the future of public sector funding may hold.

Links:

• ARLIS/UK & Ireland Annual Conference 2010, University of Edinburgh, 14th – 16th July 2010
• Joining the dots: funding and sustaining digital collections, Leigh Garrett, VADS, the online resource for visual arts (PDF)

The fifth workshop in the JISC-funded Look-Here! project focused on digitisation, and was held on the 9th July at the University of Brighton. The workshop included a practical introduction from JISC Digital Media and a presentation on innovative 3D digitisation technologies for cultural artefacts from the Cultural Informatics Research Group at University of Brighton. Each of the partners gave presentations on their top tips and tools for digitisation projects, and the day ended with a tour of the Design Archives at the University of Brighton.

Forlorn, the knitted poodle. Image courtesy of Linda Newington.

Forlorn, a knitted and stuffed white poodle, was produced by Linda Newington, Head of Faculty Services: Law, Arts and Social Sciences, and Head Librarian at Winchester School of Art, the University of Southampton. Forlorn received an astonished welcome from the workshop participants and illustrated Linda’s top tip very well as a consequence. Linda’s top tip was to ‘keep sight of your objects’, this is because community and collaboration is essential. It is important not to lose sight of your users; objects are one of the things that get people talking and involved with your collection. Linda also mentioned the need to engage students in working with objects as part of developing their research skills.

Links:

• University of Southampton’s Knitting Collections
• Look-Here! project

Palacio de Congresos de Madrid, the venue for OR2010. Image: Stewin

On Thursday 8th July, Carlos Silva, VADS Planning and Development Manager, gave a presentation titled ‘Kultivating Kultur‘ as part of the EPrints User Group sessions at the international Open Repositories conference 2010 in Madrid, Spain. Stephanie Meece, Institutional Repository Manager of University of the Arts London Research Online, demonstrated their institutional repository as part of the presentation on the Kultur project. The JISC-funded Kultur project ran from 2007 to 2009.

Translucent blue alarm clock, circa 1998. Collection: Museum of Design in Plastics, Arts University College at Bournemouth (AUCB). The AUCB are one of the partners on the Look-Here! project.

Amy Robinson gave a presentation about VADS and the Look-Here! project at the University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury on the 25th June. This event, titled ‘Preserving today for tomorrow: digitisation projects and problems’, was organised by the Kent Information and Library Network (KILN). KILN facilitates collaboration and co-operation between information professionals.

Detail of the Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK
Image: Bernie Condon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Last Thursday Marie-Therese Gramstadt gave a presentation titled ‘From VADS to VADS’ at the Architecture Librarians Annual Conference, held from the 7th to the 9th July at the University of Portsmouth. The theme of the conference was ‘Reflections’ and the presentation reflected on VADS’ past as well as looking to current work and projects, with a focus on collections relating to architecture.

Ethel Mairet’s workgirls and apprentices at her ‘Gospels’ workshop, Ditchling, Sussex, in the 1930s. Courtesy of the Crafts Study Centre.

Ditchling: a Craft Community, is the latest feature from the Archives Hub, a JISC-funded service which provides a “gateway to thousands of the UK’s richest archives”.

Jean Vacher, Collections Manager at the Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts, writes: “In 1921, the letter-cutter, sculptor, artist and writer Eric Gill founded an arts and crafts colony in Ditchling, East Sussex. Known as The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, it was a unique experiment in communal life in the early twentieth century, and survived until 1989.”

The images are available from VADS here: http://www.vads.ac.uk/collections/CSC.html

The feature is available here: http://archiveshub.ac.uk/features/ditchlingcraftcommunity/

The Studio in 1934: three students fitting an evening gown,
courtesy of the University of the Arts London

Images from the London College of Fashion’s College Archive appear in an article in the latest edition of LCF’s flagship publication Pigeons and Peacocks.

Reference: Dolan, Maggie. 2010. The Rag Trade/The Studio: Then & Now. pp. 66-69 in ‘Pigeons & Peacocks’ Issue 3 Fashion.Thought.Human Interest. Story. LONDON: London College of Fashion.

The London College of Fashion College Archives images are available from VADS here: http://vads.ac.uk/collections/LCFCA.html

To request the Pigeons and Peacocks magazine: http://www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/courses/magazine.php