The Davison Art Center (DAC) received a $111,173 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on Friday, Sept. 19 to be used for a series of digitization projects. The grant was awarded under the IMLS’ Museums for America program for the proposed use of digitizing works to add to the DAC’s collection.
Over the next three summers, the collections will be exhibited in the gallery and will feature pre-1900 prints from different countries. During summer 2015, master prints from German and Dutch artists will be featured, and in the coming years, the DAC will display pre-1900 British prints and other areas of the collection. A temporary project staff team will be hired to execute the digitizing process, including a photographer, individuals with experience in image preparation, and two University students or recent graduates. The collections will be held in the summer from mid-June to late July, lasting five or six weeks, over three summers.
Manager of Museum Information Services and project director for the grant Rob Lancefield ’82 stated that the DAC hopes to provide opportunities for emerging professionals and individuals early on in their career. University students will serve as assistants and will undergo training in organizing collections. By fall, all of the images from each summer are expected to be available in the DAC Collections Search online. Although the project’s primary purpose is to make available richer visual resources for University students and faculty, the sources will be open and downloadable for the public.
IMLS serves as the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 35,000 museums. The Museums for America program specifically supports learning experiences, engagement of community members, increased accessibility of rich collections, and the safeguarding of the nation’s cultural and scientific heritage.
Lancefield stated that the DAC hopes the availability of these classic pieces will be useful to both students and scholars.
“Let’s say that somebody’s doing a research project,” Lancefield said. “For example, an art history student here or a scholar, and they’re looking at different impressions of certain Rembrandt prints. When the grant-funded work is further along, one of the things they will be able to do for that is download a high-resolution image of a print that is in our vault, which for many purposes can be exactly what they need.”
The University was one of the 196 institutions awarded a grant out of the 554 institutions that were involved in the application process. In its search, the IMLS looked for applicants with the resources to execute their projects efficiently and whose proposals aligned with the IMLS mission.
Lancefield stated that he believes this project is in line with the purpose of the DAC.
“The project lines up very well with why the DAC is here, and what it is that we do to serve Wesleyan’s mission,” Lancefield said.
Curator at the Davison Art Center Clare Rogan expressed her excitement about making the collections available digitally.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for us to do what a lot of small institutions have difficulty doing,” Rogan said. “It really enables us to make this collection more visible on the web nationally and internationally.”
University President Michael Roth shared his positive outlook on the project and the impact it will have on the students.
“The grant is a good step to making [the DAC collection] more visible to students and faculty,” Roth said. “We need to make the collection more accessible and we can’t do that by saying, ‘Hey, here’s a print, take it to your room,’ because they’re too fragile. But we could say, ‘Here’s a digital copy of the print.’ If you have things digitized, you can search, you can look for things, and then go in and get the materials to work with.”
Lancefield stated that the DAC sees this grant as recognition of the importance of the Center’s contribution to the University community.
“Thanks to the IMLS, this is going to make so many great things possible,” Lancefield said. “As fairly a small number of museums started having open access policies for images, the Davison Art Center hopes to create as many images, as long as there isn’t another copyright holder, for greater visible access for the public.”