Teaching and Learning via the Network
Caprina: Wide Access to Digitized Images for Education
Project Number 27 - 1993
Walter Gilbert
Assisstant Director
Computer Science Center
University of Maryland at College Park
Computer Science Center
University of Maryland at College Park
College Park, MD 20742-2411
(301) 405-6727
Fax: (301) 314-9198
Walter_Gilbert@umail.umd.edu
Abstract
The ultimate goal of the Caprina project is to improve
education, research, and community service by providing ready access to
large collections and a wide variety of digitized high-quality images
via the Campus optical-fiber-based network. By using a collaboration
between the Campus CARL (network-accessible) library system and
dedicated images servers on the network, images will be available on
thousands of computers both on and off Campus.
In addition to facilitating access to images by their traditional users,
wide-ranging image accessibility will be enhanced with an extended
searching capability so that the images are usable in ways limited only
people's imaginations.
The beginning stages of the project are already yielding unanticipated
benefits. The large number of students in disciplines such as Art
History and Architecture has usually precluded their access to
departmental slide libraries for review of images seen in class. In
turn, instructors have restricted their syllibi. Now faculty are
unrestricted in their choices of images since they are all available on
the network.
Student access to images is via several locally-written programs. One
presents the student with the bibliographic citations of the images in
the order in which they appeared in class. Clicking on a citation
produces the image. Multiple images can be displayed simultaneously. A
flash-card program presents students with sets of images in a random
order.