Flickr API improvements could yield more collections like accessCeramics

Last month Aaron Straup from Flickr announced four new API methods for machine tags (and also happened to mention our project!). One of these methods in particular, flickr.machinetags.getValues, inches Flickr closer to the idea of 'Flickr as database' for metadata storage.

In the past, if you wanted to find all the unique values of a given field (artist, for example), you had to query Flickr to get all the photos with 'artist' as a field, then make a call for each photo to get tag values...and then use a language like PHP to extract unique values. Once your collection gets past a few images, this sequence of events quickly becomes impractical.

With flickr.machinetags.getValues, you can get all unique values for a given field with just one call. This paves the way for creating UI links for browsing different values for fields. It also lessens the need to store metadata in a MySQL database, like we currently do.

As others have expressed interest in creating collections like accessCeramics, we've begun development on a more generic tool for cataloging Flickr images. We're also working on a companion presentation tool for viewing these catalogued collections. Thanks to the new API methods, the presentation software should run quickly, and shouldn't rely (much) on an external database. We'll post more information about this project as it becomes available.

Public launch of accessCeramics.org

Though online since March, 2008, the public launch of the accessCeramics project will occur in late winter and early spring of 2009. Scheduled for presentation at three national/international conferences and one regional northwest conference, members of the accessCeramics team will present papers, host a booth, and generally spread the word about the contemporary ceramics database. Check below for the names of the various conferences, their locations, dates and websites. Session dates and times will be posted later. Thanks to all of you who have submitted images to raise the numbers of the continually growing collection. For those invited artists who still have this on your "to-do" list, we encourage you to submit your images (or more images) for maximum exposure during the public launch of the website.

CAA (College Art Association)
Los Angeles, CA., February 25 – 28th, 2009

VRA (Visual Resources Association)
Toronto, Canada, March 18th – 22nd 2009

NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts)
Phoenix, AZ., April 8 – 11th, 2009

Northwest History and Heritage Extravaganza: Oregon Heritage Commission, The Washington State Historical Society, The Oregon Historical Society, Northwest Archivists.
Portland, Oregon, April 15-18, 2009.


-Margo

Winner of Survey Drawing

The accessCeramics team recently surveyed a group of accessCeramics users to help improve the accessCeramics collection and web site. Those taking the survey were eligible to win a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate.

I'm pleased to announce that Steve Hilton is the winner of the gift certificate.

We'll have more about our survey results on this blog in the near future.

-Mark

geographic diversity

Part of the beauty of using Flickr as our submission system for accessCeramics is its global reach. This allows us to seek contributions from artists who live just about anywhere. To reflect this, we just added a Google Map of our artist locations to accessCeramics.
As we're still building the collection, the geographic diversity of our artists is currently limited to the United States (Michael Moore is our lone international artists). As the collection grows, hopefully our national and international representation will grow as well.

accessCeramics supported by NITLE Grant

Earlier this summer, accessCeramics was fortunate enough to be awarded a $19,000 grant from the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE)'s Instructional Innovation Fund--Western Region. The grant will facilitate the growth of accessCeramics and its use in liberal arts colleges in the 2008-09 academic year.

Funds will support our new part-time Submission's Coordinator, Miranda Costa, who is now helping to recruit artists for the collection. She is also providing technical support and assistance to artists as they add their images.

Funds will also go to support redesign of the accessCeramics website and improvements to the interface to make it more useful for teaching. Furthermore, grant monies will support travel to the NCECA 2009 conference, where we will be promoting accessCeramics to arts educators and artists.

As part of the NITLE grant, several ceramic arts instructors at liberal arts colleges around the country will be using accessCeramics in instruction this coming academic year. These colleges include:

Juniata College
Carleton College
Macalester College
Denison University
Kalamazoo College
University of Puget Sound
Hope College
Willamette University
Lawrence University

Instructors will provide feedback to us about the accessCeramics user interface and collection.

The accessCeramics team is grateful for NITLE's support.

code4lib journal article

Issue 3 of the code4lib online journal was published today, and it contains an article I wrote on the technology surrounding accessCeramics. Some of the main points have already been discussed in this blog, though the article goes into somewhat more depth. If you're interested in some of the design philosophy behind accessCeramics, and perhaps some of the nerdier aspects of the project, it might be worth a look.

accessCeramics now PicLens compatible

accessCeramics is now compatible with the browser plugin PicLens. What does this mean? It will completely change way the images on the site are viewed.

PicLens creates a 'virtual gallery' view, which is a wall of images one can easily navigate. It also lets users view full screen slide shows of images. accessCeramics has browse-specific PicLens slide shows for any case. For example, to view all 'Coil-built' images, go to the browse screen, and click 'Start Slideshow'.

accessCeramics also supports PicLens Lite, so those without the Piclens plugin will get a similar Flash-based view.