Northwestern MDID Installation: The "Digital Image Library"
The methods of presenting and sharing visual media are at an important stage of flux. Gone are the traditional slides and associated projectors; in are digital image files and computer projectors. The need to follow such changing trends is particularly important in the field of Art History. The software to create and manage a large digital, online collection can be very time and resource expensive to develop from the ground-up. For this reason, the MMLC, the Department of Art History, and the Visual Media Collection (VMC) began launched a trial installation of the Madison Digital Image Database (MDID), a new and exciting free open-source image repository software developed at James Madison University. Following the success of this trial, and a reorganization of the University's resources, the MMLC then worked with the Northwestern University Library to evolve the database into a Digital Image Library ("DIL") having a university-wide scope. MDID has proven to be revolutionary software which has allowed the culture and techniques of classical analog slide presentations to be brought into the 21st century in an all-digital realm for at a very low cost of integration.
Using MDID and similar repository software, instructors and students will have access to an end-to-end system offering a complete catalog of images, lecture preparation tools (such as a virtual light table) and classroom presentation system. Most importantly, students and faculty will also have the ability to consult image resources at any time and from anywhere on the University network.
Because the VMC already maintains an extensive catalog of over 26,000 images in the NU Library's Voyager system, the MMLC has developed, with assistance from the Library, a special data conduit to facilitate the import of this well-curated metadata into the local MDID repository.
Northwestern University users can access the MDID installation online:
https://images.northwestern.edu/
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