[NINCH Logo]

ninch-announce: AMICO; Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries

ninch-announce: AMICO; Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries

AMICO; Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries

David Green (david@cni.org)
Thu, 14 Aug 1997 11:57:14 -0400 

Message-Id: <v02130501b018c8ed9338@[192.100.21.23]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 11:57:14 -0400
To: ninch-announce@cni.org
From: david@cni.org (David Green)
Subject: AMICO; Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries

NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
August 14, 1997


                   CANADIAN INITIATIVE ON DIGITAL LIBRARIES

      ART MUSEUM IMAGE CONSORTIUM (AMICO) TO BE FORMALLY INAUGURATED


The following two announcements are of new consortia that have recently
been formed. The first is the Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries
(CIDL), created to foster greater coordination of  Canadian digital library
resources. The second is the  Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO), which
after many months of detailed planning, is being formally inaugurated this
September. AMICO will build a shared library of digital images and
documentation of art museums' collections for licensing and distribution to
the educational community.

David Green


------------------------------------------------------------------
Announcing the Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries

A new alliance of Canadian libraries interested in improving communication
and coordination in the development of Canadian digital library resources
has been formed. The Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries (CIDL) will
provide a forum for:

*sharing information and experience related to digital libraries,

*discussing best practices in areas such as digitization, metadata,
encoding, rights management,
etc.,

*defining roles and responsibilities for long-term archiving of Canadian
digital resources,

*raising awareness of Canadian digital library activities both in Canada
and internationally,

*and discussing many other issues including training, funding,
interoperability, public access, etc.

CIDL will be directed by a steering committee elected in the Fall 1997 from
member libraries, and there will be subgroups on specific issues. CIDL is
open to all Canadian libraries.

For more information on CIDL--its mandate, objectives, proposed activities,
how to become a member, etc.--and to find some other useful information on
digital library development, please see our site at
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/cidl/

Gwynneth Evans
Director-General, National and International Programs
National Library of Canada
gwynneth.evans@nlc-bnc.ca

****************************************************************


ART MUSEUM IMAGE CONSORTIUM (AMICO) DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE

Please excuse any duplication ...

The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) is founding the Art Museum
Image Consortium (AMICO). The members of this new not-for-profit
organization will build a shared library of digital documentation of their
collections for licensing and distribution to the educational community.

A formal invitation to form the Consortium was issued by Hugh Davies,
President of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) on August 7,
1997. Founding Members of AMICO are invited to attend the Consortium's
inaugural meeting, September 22-23, 1997 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
The founding of AMICO follows a number of planning meetings, where over 70
representatives from art museums in the United States and Canada defined
the terms of their collaboration. Together these museums will build a
shared library of digital documentation of their collections for licensing
and distribution to the educational community. AMICO will build a
collective Library, comprised of multimedia works (at least text and
image)  documenting the collections of its member museums. Products
derived from that Library, which may or may not include value-added
indexing and retrieval tools, will be offered to different markets under
specific licenses and through a number of distribution channels

A set of agreements reflecting this consensus were drafted by Archives &
Museum Informatics, who acted as consultants and facilitators throughout
the AMICO planning process. These include frameworks for organizing the
Consortium, governing its strategic planning, developing a standards-based
approach to the distribution of the AMICO Library, and defining its
products and licenses. Key among these are the draft University and Museum
licenses, that outline the terms under which the library will be offered
to these communities. Next on the licensing agenda is the drafting of K-12
educational and public library licenses, as the museums involved have
active educational programs that are already reaching these communities.
This work will continue in tandem with plans for a testbed distribution of
a significant Library of digital documentation to a limited number of
universities in the Fall of 1998.

       AMICO's framework documents are now available for public comment at
       http://www.amn.org/AMICO


       Questions regarding AMICO can be directed to:

       Maxwell Anderson
       Liaison for Information Technology
       Association of Art Museum Directors
       max_anderson@ago.net

       or

       Jennifer Trant or David Bearman
       Archives & Museum Informatics
       jtrant@archimuse.com or dbear@archimuse.com

--------
J. Trant                             jtrant@archimuse.com
Partner and Principal Consultant     www.archimuse.com
Archives & Museums Informatics
5501 Walnut St., Suite 203           ph. + 1-412-683-9775
Pittsburgh, PA USA 15232             fax + 1-412-683-7366
--------

===============================================================

David L. Green
Executive Director
NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR A NETWORKED CULTURAL HERITAGE
21 Dupont Circle, NW
Washington DC 20036
www-ninch.cni.org
david@cni.org
202/296-5346                                  202/872-0886 fax

==============================================================
See and search back issues of NINCH-ANNOUNCE at
<http://www.cni.org/Hforums/ninch-announce/>.
==============================================================

[CNI Home Page]