Approximately 40+ people attended the presentation. This was gratifying given some confusion in the ALA program regarding the location of the presentation. A report on the program from Debra Shapiro, IG Chair, is interspersed below in blue.

The Museum Educational Site Licensing Project (MESL) brought digital images from seven museums to seven university campuses for a two-year period which has just ended. Sponsored by the Getty Information Institute, this has been a ground-breaking experiment in site licensing and networked delivery of digital cultural heritage information to the academic community. This program will focus on aspects of the library's role in site licensing and networked delivery of images to the classroom, as well as an examination of the MESL model in terms of both its impact and cost.

More information on the MESL project may be found at: MESL Homepages : Getty Information Institute

Presentations:

1. What do libraries need to know about licensing? Arranging campus access to digital images of art works from museums. Terms, conditions, network access, uses and user communities.

   Christie Stephenson, Digital Collections Librarian, New York University; MESL Project Director

   Christie Stephenson was the most thought-provoking speaker of the group. The MESL project began in 1994, and during the two year course of the project, plus additional year follow-up and evaluation, digital image technology and the delivery of digital images via the World Wide Web evolved dramatically, so the very process that MESL set out to study was in flux during the project lifetime. Stephenson was candid about aspects of the MESL project that made some of its findings hard to quantify. For example, each of the seven participant universities made quite different uses of the images they received. Finally, the very different institutional cultures which exist in the museums and universities participating in the project affected the outcomes of the project.

2. New services and programs in response to user needs: program support for teaching and learning; software development, etc.

   Diana Vogelsang, American University
   Catherine Hays, University of Maryland at College Park
   Ellen Yu Borkowski, University of Maryland at College Park

   These two presentations showcased the different uses two universities made of the MESL images. American University created a web interface for students to create access to the images. University of Maryland developed software for faculty to use, allowing them to manipulate and display the digital images in much the same manner as slides. For example, the software allows users to view the digital images as if on a light table, and then arrange them pairs for simultaneous display in the classroom, the standard practice of art history professors.

3. Evaluation: the impact on visual resources provision (slide libraries), and the impact on teaching and learning.

   Beth Sandore, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

   Sandore presented the results of surveys taken at the seven participating universities, measuring student and faculty opinions and uses of the digital images.

4. Costs: a report on the Mellon Foundation supported study of the costs (in time, personnel, prior knowledge, and money) of distributing a library of digital images.

   Howard Besser, University of California, Berkeley

   Besser analyzed the costs of the delivery of digital images in comparison with the delivery of analog images (slides). The preliminary report on this Mellon Foundation funded research is available at: http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~yama/mellon/MESL/reports/interim/Mellon%20-%20Interim%20Report.htm