Visual Resources Association, Northern California

2011-12-23T13:16:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce that Kris Branscomb is the recipient of the first chapter-sponsored membership for 2012. Congratulations to Kris and thanks for your participation. Abby Dansiger will take over as Chapter Chair in January.

Happy Holidays to All.

2011-12-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

The deadline has now passed for nominations for our Chair Elect for 2012, and Emily Vigor is our sole candidate. Members will soon be receiving an online ballot to confirm Emily's nomination. Thanks, Emily, for volunteering your service.

The Website for the annual Art Libraries Society (ARLIS) and VRA sponsored Summer Education Institute is now live. If you are a grad student in information and library science or art history, are new to the profession of image curating, or need to update your technology and/or management skills, this is a valuable opportunity. Registration will open on January 18, 2012.

SEI 2012 will be held from June 19th to 22nd at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The intensive three and a half-day workshop will feature a curriculum that specifically addresses the requirements of today’s professional, and will include hands-on and lecture modules. Expert instructors will cover intellectual property rights, digital imaging, metadata and cataloguing, and strategic planning. There are usually a few grants offered to help with funding the trip to Michigan if you want to go but do not have the resources. Dorm rooms will be available for around $50 per night. It is held in a different location each year.

2011-12-14T11:35:00.000-08:00

Today, December 14, 2011 at 5 pm is the deadline to throw your name in the ring to volunteer to be Chair-elect of our Chapter for the next year and to succeed Abby Dansiger in 2013 as Chair. To apply, you need to be a renewed member for 2012 of the VRA and the Chapter. Simply submit a short statement of candidacy stating why you want the office and what you would hope to accomplish along with a brief biographical statement to current Chair-elect Abby Dansiger (ADansiger@academyart.edu) or Chairperson Karen Kessel (karen.kessel@sonoma.edu). To date, we have one candidate, Emily Vigor, cataloging assistant at the Academy of Art.

Tuesday, December 20, is the deadline to apply for our new Chapter-sponsored membership in the chapter and the national organization. You can access a form with the full application guidelines under the Chapter Information column on the right, or click here. You must demonstrate financial need and a willingness to actively participate in the chapter to further the goals of the VRA. We are in the planning stages to have a second joint mini-conference with our southern California sister chapter next June, and this will entail dedicated efforts and coordination to make it as successful as last year's event in Santa Barbara. So if you would have been wanting to join the VRA and the Chapter but your institution just cannot provide the budget for it, this might be for you.

Location Change for November 4th Meeting!

2011-11-03T12:23:00.000-07:00

Due to a larger than expected turnout, we will be holding our meeting tomorrow in Room 200C, Earl Warren Hall, at 2195 Hearst Avenue (NW corner of Oxford and Hearst):

Please note that UCB security requires all attendees to be confirmed in advance, and everyone must sign in upon arrival. If you have not sent your RSVP yet, please do so no later than 4 o’clock today to Karen Kessel (karen.kessel@sonoma.edu) or Abby Dansiger (adansiger@academyart.edu).

Attendees are strongly encouraged to use public transportation if possible, as there is a large construction project underway in the area. If you are driving, some public parking options include the Center Street Parking Garage, 2025 Center Street between Milvia and Shattuck Avenues, and the Berkeley Way Parking Lot, Berkeley Way at Henry between Shattuck Avenue and Milvia Street. For a full list of public garages and lots with details about locations and rates, please see:

http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=8260

If you have any questions, please contact Karen or Abby. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow!

VRA NoCal Chapter Fall Meeting: November 4th at CoDA, UC Berkeley

2011-10-20T09:55:00.000-07:00

Please join VRA NoCal, the Visual Resources Association Northern California Chapter, for our Fall meeting on Friday, November 4, 2011, at UC Berkeley’s CoDA, the Center for Digital Archaeology, located on the UC Berkeley campus at 2224 Piedmont Avenue. The day’s activities will begin with our chapter business meeting at 9:00 a.m., followed by two presentations, a tour of CoDA, and an optional visit to the Kurt Schwitters exhibition at BAM/PFA.

About the Presentations:

Jan Eklund, Business Systems Analyst, IST Data Services, UC Berkeley, will follow up on her talk from this summer’s CaVRACon about implementing CollectionSpace for the UC Berkeley Art History collection, “Deploying CollectionSpace for a VR Collection.”

CollectionSpace is a community-source collection management system designed to address the challenges faced by many institutions stewarding different kinds of collections. This presentation will first introduce the Mellon- funded CollectionSpace development project and will then focus on the the IMLS-funded effort to deploy this product for use by the History of Art Visual Resources Collection at UC Berkeley.

Jan Eklund, formerly Curator of Visual Resources for the History of Art Department at UCB, is now an independent metadata consultant and domain specialist for UCB IST-Data Services. She is currently drawing on her 36 years of experience in the field of Visual Resources to help migrate data from the History of Art legacy database into CollectionSpace.

For more information about CollectionSpace, please see:

http://www.collectionspace.org/
http://wiki.collectionspace.org/
http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/deploy/HAVRC

Dr. Michael Ashley, Chief Technology Officer at CoDA, will discuss the projects taking place at CoDA, as well as lead a tour of the facility.

CoDA, the Center for Digital Archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley, aims to empower archaeologists, technologists and educators by driving the adoption and development of digital heritage solutions, emphasizing the practical, the doable, and the achievable for practitioners of our field with as little reliance on technology specialists as possible.

Michael Ashley Ph.D. is a digital conservation architect. Dr. Ashley has more than 16 years of experience in cultural heritage informatics management and education. He received his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley, where he co-founded several initiatives, including the award winning Open Knowledge and the Public Interest (OKAPI), and the Media Vault Program, which seeks to develop digital preservation frameworks for research and scholarship. An archaeological photographer by training, he was the Media Team lead for the Çatalhöyük Research Project for more than 7 years and has worked on heritage preservation projects worldwide.

For more information about CoDA, please see:

http://www.codifi.info/

This meeting is open to all current VRA members; non-members are welcome to attend for a $10 fee. To join or renew your annual VRA membership, please submit payment directly to VRA following the instructions here:

http://www.vraweb.org/members/index.html

Schedule:

Meet and Greet at CoDA, 2224 Piedmont Avenue (9:00 a.m. - 9:30)

Coffee, tea, juice, pastries

Business Meeting (9:30 - 10:30)

Introduction of new officers

Secretary/Treasurer report

Discussion topics:

Request from the VRA Development committee for contributions to speaker fees by the regional chapters for the 2012 conference

Proposed CA VRA Con North in June 2012

15-Minute Break (10:30 - 10:45)

Presentation by Jan Eklund (10:45 - 11:45)

Lunch Break (11:45 - 1:00 p.m.)

Presentation by Dr. Michael Ashley (1:00 – 2:00)

Tour of CoDA (2:00 – 3:00)

Optional Visit to BAM/PFA (3:00 – 9:00)

Meeting Location Information:

UC Berkeley’s CoDA, the Center for Digital Archaeology, is located at 2224 Piedmont Avenue. The CoDA building is near the intersection of Optometry Lane and Piedmont Avenue, just north of the Boalt Hall School of Law and west of the California Memorial Stadium.

Public Transit / Parking Information:

The nearest BART station to UC Berkeley’s campus is the Downtown Berkeley stop: http://www.bart.gov/stations/dbrk/index.aspx

AC Transit Trip Planner: http://transit.511.org/accessible/tripplanner/index.aspx

AC Transit UC Berkeley: http://pt.berkeley.edu/around/transit/alttransit

Information on honoring other UC permits: http://pt.berkeley.edu/park/permit/affiliates#reciprocity

UC Berkeley parking maps: http://pt.berkeley.edu/maps

List of public parking lots: http://pt.berkeley.edu/park/public

BAM/PFA Visit:

About the Kurt Schwitters Exhibition: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/schwitters

Visitor Information: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/visit

You can view and download the full meeting agenda here along with the "Berkeley Guide," provided by CoDA, which includes more detailed information about public transportation, driving and parking, and dining options.

To help us plan accordingly for morning refreshments, please RSVP by November 1st to Karen Kessel (karen.kessel@sonoma.edu, 707-664-2145) or Abby Dansiger (adansiger@academyart.edu, 415-618-3761). Please also contact Karen or Abby with any questions or concerns, or if you have any additional discussion items for the business meeting.

We look forward to seeing you on November 4th!

Save the Date: VRA NoCal Fall Chapter Meeting, November 4, 2011

2011-10-13T14:21:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Please save the date of November 4, 2011, to join the VRA Northern California Chapter for our Fall meeting on the UC Berkeley campus at CoDA, UCB’s Center for Digital Archaeology. The day’s activities will include two presentations, a tour of CoDA, and an optional visit to the Kurt Schwitters exhibition at BAM/PFA.

About the Presentations:

Jan Eklund, Business Systems Analyst, IST Data Services, UC Berkeley, will follow up on her talk from this summer’s CaVraCon about implementing CollectionSpace for the UC Berkeley Art History collection, “Deploying CollectionSpace for a VR Collection.”

For more information about CollectionSpace, please see:

http://www.collectionspace.org/
http://wiki.collectionspace.org/
http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/deploy/HAVRC

Dr. Michael Ashley, Chief Technology Officer at CoDA, will discuss the projects taking place at CoDA, as well as lead a tour of the facility.

For more information about CoDA, please see:

http://www.codifi.info/

This meeting is open to all current VRA members; non-members are welcome to attend for a $10 fee. To join or renew your annual VRA membership, please submit payment directly to VRA following the instructions here:

http://www.vraweb.org/members/index.html

Tentative Agenda:

Full details are forthcoming, but the following activities are currently scheduled for the day:

VRA Northern California Chapter business meeting at CoDA, located at 2224 Piedmont Avenue (please see map below).

Presentations by Dr. Michael Ashley and Jan Eklund.

Tour of CoDA.

A lunch break will be taken mid-day at which time attendees may choose from several options around the UC Berkeley campus.

Attendees can then end the day with an optional visit to the Kurt Schwitters exhibition at BAM/PFA.

Meeting Location Information:

UC Berkeley’s CoDA, the Center for Digital Archaeology, is located at 2224 Piedmont Avenue. The CoDA building is near the intersection of Optometry Lane and Piedmont Avenue, just north of the Boalt Hall School of Law and west of the California Memorial Stadium.

Public Transit / Parking Information:

The nearest BART station to UC Berkeley’s campus is the Downtown Berkeley stop: http://www.bart.gov/stations/dbrk/index.aspx

AC Transit Trip Planner: http://transit.511.org/accessible/tripplanner/index.aspx

AC Transit UC Berkeley: http://pt.berkeley.edu/around/transit/alttransit

Information on honoring other UC permits: http://pt.berkeley.edu/park/permit/affiliates#reciprocity

UC Berkeley parking maps: http://pt.berkeley.edu/maps

List of public parking lots: http://pt.berkeley.edu/park/public

BAM/PFA Information:

About the Kurt Schwitters Exhibition: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/schwitters

Visitor Information: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/visit

Please feel free to contact Karen Kessel (karen.kessel@sonoma.edu, 707-664-2145) or Abby Dansiger (adansiger@academyart.edu, 415-618-3761) with any questions or concerns.

We look forward to seeing you on November 4th!

CaVraCon 2011 at UC Santa Barbara

2011-09-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

The CaVraCon conference at UC Santa Barbara in June was a big success, thank you to all who attended.

Here's a link to the website, it includes resources from the conference sessions for your reference as well as some photos.
https://sites.google.com/site/cavraconference/home

The business meeting minutes from Santa Barbara are now available on the blog, in the column to the right under Meeting Minutes.

Fall 2010 VRA NoCal Chapter Meeting

2010-11-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

This fall VRA NoCal will meet at Stanford University on November 19, 2010, for a panel discussion on copyright in libraries and museums. This will be a joint meeting between VRA NoCal and ARLIS NA / Northern California (NC). Please see the agenda for more details about location, times, and speakers.

Tentative Agenda for Joint VRA NoCal & ARLIS/NA-NC Fall Meeting
Friday, November 19, 2010
Green Library, Stanford University

9:00am, Meet in the Information Center Instruction Room for coffee and pastries, VRA and ARLIS mingle

9:20am, Break into separate rooms for business meetings
ARLIS in Information Center Instruction Room, VRA in Social Sciences Seminar Room

9:30am, Business meeting
Co-chairs call to order the fall meeting of the VRA NoCal Chapter.

-Minutes of the last meeting read and approved
-Treasurer's report
-Introduce Ian Frederick-Rothwell as our chapters new secretary / treasurer
-VRA Conference in March in Minneapolis: who is going? Do we have enough for a meeting there? Solicit items for chapter basket for the fundraising auction
-VRA SoCal members talked up the idea of a joint VRA So/NoCal meeting in Santa Barbara next June (summer 2011). Possible workshop ideas for that meeting could be on using the Getty vocabularies and invite Murtha Baca or someone else from the Getty to do lead it.
-Discussion of what members want from their local chapter for future meetings
-Ideas for encouraging membership from new sources.
-Roundtable discussion (time permitting)

10:45am, Break
VRA and ARLIS reconvene in IC Instruction Room for presentations

11:00am-12:30pm, Copyright presentations

-Mimi Calter, Assistant University Librarian & Chief of Staff, Stanford, University Libraries. She will present on the nuts-and-bolts of copyright in libraries.
-Anne Bast, Intellectual Property Associate, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). She will present on SFMOMA’s approach to copyright, image management, and Explore Modern Art, SFMOMA’s online collection database.
-Jason M. Schultz, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall). He will present on a topic related to Google Book Search and interlibrary loan.

12:30-1:00pm, Post-presentation discussion

1:00pm, Lunch
Stanford Faculty Club, cost ca. $26. This is a buffet lunch with drinks and dessert. The buffet lunch is $13.25, drinks are $1.50, and desserts are $3.50. + 20% tip for the group lunch and tax.

IMPORTANT: The Faculty Club will present one bill for the group to be paid by credit card. The lunch will be CASH ONLY since one of the chairs will be putting the whole charge on their credit card. If you plan to have lunch at the faculty club please bring the amount of cash you need for your lunch.

2:30pm-3:30pm, Tour of the Stanford Art & Architecture Library
Peter Blank, Head Librarian of the Art & Architecture Library, will lead the tour.

Places to visit on campus:
Cantor Center for the Visual Arts/Rodin Sculpture Garden
Stanford Art Gallery
Art & Architecture Library
Hoover Tower
Stanford Mausoleum, Angel of Grief, and Arboretum
Arizona Cactus Garden
Organized Campus Tours (see especially Campus Walking Tour and Self-Guided Tours)

Fall Meeting, November 19, 2010, Stanford University

2010-10-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

VRA NoCal members will be gathering this fall on November 19, at Stanford University. This will be a joint ARLIS NA / NC chapter meeting and our topic will be copyright.

We will be in touch with an agenda as the meeting’s schedule solidifies.

Spring 2010 VRA NoCal Chapter Meeting

2010-02-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

The VRA NoCal chapter group will be meeting February 26, at UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, 305 Wurster Hall, for a lecture and discussion on local subject authorities, visual cataloging, and the STEVE Project. Our guest speakers will be Judy Weedman, professor at the San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science, and Layna White, Head of Collections Information at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Agenda:

9:00-9:30 Meet and greet, with coffee, tea, juice, nibbles

9:30-10:30 Judy Weedman will discuss ideas from her paper, “The Practice of Design: Creating Local Vocabularies for Images” (2004).

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-11:45 Layna White will present “Hot Data: Providing Access to Contemporary Art”. Layna will discuss issues related to metadata and documentation of still images using examples of works from the SFMOMA collection.

11:45-1:15 Lunch (Free Speech Café is a nearby option)

1:15-2:30 Business Meeting

2:30-4:30
Visit the “Stock Options: Houses for Everyone” exhibit in Volkmann Reading Room, Environmental Design Library (210 Wurster Hall).Visitor Information: http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/events/exhibitions

Visit the following exhibits at the University of California Berkeley Art Museum: “French Film Posters from the BAM/PFA Collection”, “Joe McKay: Big Time”, “Ahmet Öğüt: Exploded City / MATRIX 231”, “Thom Faulders: BAMscape”, “James Castle: A Retrospective”, and “Nature into Action: Hans Hofmann”. Visitor Information: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/visit

Don’t forget:

You can renew your national and local chapter membership through the VRA’s MemberClicks Website here: http://web.memberclicks.com/mc/page.do;jsessionid=FA1DBB2DA4DFFA14C51F03495C55B7D1.mc0?sitePageId=1470

We welcome non-VRA members to attend our chapter meeting. We are charging visitors a nominal fee of $10 to attend the meeting.

Please consider bringing a contribution for the VRAffle if you cannot attend the VRA Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia (3/17-20/10). The contribution is for the VRA NoCal gift bag/basket, which will represent the fun/interesting things of our region (no alcohol please- Georgia state law prohibits liquor to be part of a donation.). If you are going to Atlanta, you have a little more time to shop/create. Does anyone have an idea for a special theme, other than the resources of Northern California? More information on the VRAffle: http://www.vraweb.org/conferences/2010atlanta/vraffle.html

Public Transit / Parking Information:

The meeting will be held at UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, 305 Wurster Hall. Wurster Hall is just north of the intersection of Bancroft and College Avenues, beyond the Phoebe Heart Museum of Anthropology.

The nearest BART station to UCB’s campus is the Downtown Berkeley stop: http://www.bart.gov/stations/dbrk/index.aspx

AC Transit Trip Planner: http://www2.actransit.org/tripplanner.wu

Campus info on honoring other UC permits: http://pt.berkeley.edu/park/permit/affiliates#reciprocity

UCB parking maps: http://pt.berkeley.edu/maps

List of public parking lots: http://pt.berkeley.edu/park/public

Please feel free to contact co-chairs Heather Cummins (hcummins@academyart.edu, 415-618-3761) or Karen Kessel (karen.kessel@sonoma.edu, 707-664-2145) with any questions or concerns- thank you!

Spring 2010 VRA NoCal Chapter Meeting – Save the Date (2/26/10)

2010-02-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

The VRA NoCal chapter will meet Friday, February 26, at UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, 305 Wurster Hall, for a lecture and discussion on local subject authorities, visual cataloging, and the STEVE project. Our guest speakers will be Judy Weedman, professor at the San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science, and Layna White, Head of Collections Information at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Further information on the meeting / agenda will be posted soon.