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Marilyn Aronberg Lavin
Department of Art and Archaeology
Princeton University
Starting with the June 1993 issue, abstracts of articles and the table of contents of forthcoming issues of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH) will be posted on the CAAH Listserv, an interactive electronic bulletin board for the exchange of scholarly and professional information. Information about the JSAH will be posted at least two months prior to the appearance of an issue. This remarkable service will be the first of a number of innovations planned for improving the dissemination of information in the field of art and architectural history.
Access to CAAH can be obtained through both BITNET and INTERNET. E-mail to MALAVIN@PUCC.Bitnet, giving your field of special interest and academic affiliation in order to be signed onto the list.
CAAH Listserv offers a chance for architectural historians to communicate easily and economically with colleagues in this country and abroad via computer network. This fall, general queries from the editor of the JSAH (seeking readers for articles and other matters of interest to Society members) will be posted on the CAAH bulletin board. E-mail to the JSAH editor, Nicholas Adams, at NIADAMS@VASSAR.BITNET.
Wassim M. Jabi
The University of Michigan
Announcing ArchiGopher: a server dedicated to the dissemination of architectural knowledge (i.e. fancy pictures!). The idea to construct this gopher is due to Jeremy Kargon (Johns Hopkins University) and Wassim Jabi (University of Michigan). This is a gopher server in its infancy with, as of yet, little to offer to the public. However, many exciting ideas and projects are underway which will transform ArchiGopher into a true multimedia resource for all architecture faculty and students worldwide. Some of the resources we (i.e., both of us) are thinking of putting on-line are:
1) The College's image bank.
2) The CAD group's collection of computer models.
3) The Doctoral Program's recent dissertation proposals and
abstracts.
4) Campus and College Images and Information to help prospective
students get acquainted with Ann Arbor and the College of
Architecture.
There are also other projects being considered that will offer unique resources for architectural researchers not readily available anywhere else.
Currently we have:
1) Example archive of Kandinsky paintings.
2) Three-dimensional CAD images (The Volvo Car and Student Work)
3) Connections to Johns Hopkins Architectural Projects Gopher.
All local material on this server is Copyright (c) 1993 The University of Michigan and Wassim Jabi.
The material in the "Architectural Projects" and "PhotoCD Images from France" folders is Copyright (c) 1993 Johns Hopkins University and Jeremy Kargon.
If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please contact:
Wassim M. Jabi
The University of Michigan
Doctoral Program in Architecture
2000 Bonisteel Blvd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2069
(313) 936-0229
wjabi@libra.arch.umich.edu
Maryly Snow
Architecture Slide Library
University of California, Berkeley
SPIRO is the Architecture Slide Library's visual online public access catalog. The online catalog is available in the Architecture Slide Library and from all remote terminals using the X Window System protocol. SPIRO is in its infancy with 4,000 digital images and identifying records.
The Architecture Slide Library (ASL) is managed by the Department of Architecture in the College of Environmental Design (CED) of the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). The ASL collection contains approximately 200,000 35mm slides of architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture, decorative and industrial arts, material culture, and related topics.
SPIRO Instructions for Remote Users
Any computer system on the ethernet with an X Window display can access SPIRO. Xhost pflueger.ced.berkeley.edu. Then telnet or rlogin to pflueger.ced.berkeley.edu. No password is required. At the prompt, enter "netspiro". If no one else is logged in as netspiro, you will be prompted for the name of your X Window display. For example, mies.berkeley.edu.0.
Wait for the SPIRO start up screen, and then for the ImageQuery screen. Your window manager takes over at this point and determines where on your screen the ImageQuery window will display. Wait again for the screen to perform its initialization query. Now construct a query using three buttons, moving from left to right. First choose a data element from the "Fields" buttons, then the "Operators" button, and then the "Value Authority" button. Searchable fields include:
Subject terms are taken from the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, a project of the Getty Art History Information Program. The "Value Authority" button will produce an alphabetical indexed list of all data elements currently in the database from which you may select a value. Then hit the "Do Query" button. Your results (hits) will display in the spreadsheet below, and the total number of hits will enumerate in the top portion of the window. Full-fledged Boolean searching is possible by using combinations of fields, operators, and values.
Period
Personal Name
Subject
Start Date
Call NumberPlace
Object Title
View Type
Completion Date
Image File Name
Accessing Images Remotely
After you do a successful query, the dedicated "Browse Image Snapshots" button changes from grayed-out to black to show that it has become invokable. Once it is black, you can call up the browse images (snapshots or thumbnails) by selecting this button. If the button remains grayed-out after a successful query, it is because the optical jukebox system has temporarily gone down. Each browse image has its own pull-down menu. This can be invoked by placing the cursor in any browse image and holding down your right mouse button. You may choose between four options:
"Display Complete Record"UCB Image View is a larger size image. The full size image and/or the complete record can also be called up using the "Display Record and/or Image" button. Once a UCB ImageView has been called up, image processing or "XImageView Options" can be invoked by placing your cursor in the XImageView and holding down your right mouse button. You can select:
"Add to Save List"
"Delete from Save List"
"UCB ImageView"
"Contrast/Brightness"System Architecture
"Zoom"
"Pixel Edit"
"Done"
Within the University, SPIRO is implemented on the College of Environmental Design (CED) local area Ethernet network, which is connected to the Berkeley campus network, the Bay Area Regional Research Network, and NSFNet. In the Architecture Slide Library the system consists of a Sun SPARCstation as the file server and public access terminal, running Ingres 6.3 and ImageQuery2.0. The SPARCstation was received under a grant from Sun to the Museum Informatics Project (MIP) in which the Architecture Slide Library participates. MIP coordinates strategic development of image and object collections' management systems at UCB.
ImageQuery, the user front end to the Ingres database, runs on X Windows System protocol (x11r5). Any workstation running X Windows can display SPIRO. ImageQuery was written by Advanced Technology Planning of Information Systems and Technology of the University of California. ImageQuery is available from the Office of Technology Licensing, University of California at Berkeley, telephone (510)643-7201. The browse image snapshots, currently digitized at 16K, and full size images (UCB ImageView at approximately 300K) are stored on a DEC Storage Server 100, a 40 gigabyte combination magneto-optical jukebox acquired under a Title IID College Library Technology Research and Development Grant.
Conditions of Access and Use
All images in SPIRO are copyrighted and may be not reproduced by remote or local users under any circumstances without express written permission of the copyright holders. In most cases, the Architecture Slide Library at the University of California, Berkeley nor the University itself is NOT the copyright holder. The actual slides are not available on Interlibrary Loan. Erroneous cataloging information in the database should be brought to the attention of the librarian, Maryly Snow, via electronic mail: slides@ced.berkeley.edu.