Personal Statement: Dr. S. K. Hastings

It is a great honor to be the new director of the School of Library and Information Science here at the University of South Carolina. My work with libraries and museums to increase access to the cultural objects in their collections is the joy of my life. As well as using technologies to increase opportunities for access, I am deeply committed to protecting longevity of access and preservation of both the digital surrogate and the original object. I believe that a proven way to help these efforts is to teach others to do so.

Representative projects include the Bryant Caribbean Collection, Sepia Magazine Photo Archive, the African American Museum's website and folk art collection, the Public Scanning Station at the Denton Public Library and the Wireless Webcam for Museum Visits. Currently, I am working with 3D digital images in partnership with the Arius3D software company of Toronto, Canada. The projects are described briefly in the section below, “IMLS Fellows in Digital Image Management” with links to their web pages.

Below you will find an overview of my research, teaching and service philosophies and a brief summary. The numbers in parenthesis refer to references listed at the end of this statement.

Research Overview

My research interests evolved from several contracts I had as a consultant and full-text database builder in the 1980s and 90s. My curiosity about how people search for and retrieve digital images grew from two projects. Both projects contained digitized radiographies. One database contained x-rays of hip dysplasia in German Shepard dogs and the second database included full-mouth and wing x-rays from the files of a consortium of dentists. As I scanned the images, built the databases and assigned unique identifiers and links to the text files for each image, I realized how very little we know about the process of searching and retrieving images in general, let alone distributed over a network. It was several years before I could turn my full attention to the problem of image retrieval and by that time, I had started the doctoral program in the School of Information Studies at Florida State University. At the time (1990), the process of digitizing images was limited to the research and development activities of Kodak and the European company, Philips Electronics.

Digital Art Images

Early in my dissertation work on intellectual access to digitized images, I realized that colorful, high resolution images were needed for a successful study. I attended a conference in London on Electronic Visualization in the Arts in 1992 and found that several European projects focused on digital art images including the work of Vito Capellini in the digitization of images from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. There was a great deal of excitement around these projects. The idea of providing electronic access to representations of great works of art stimulated heated discussions on the value of cultural heritage and the unique problems of indexing and presentation created by this new format. I returned to Florida, determined to find a colorful collection to work with. The Bryant Collection at the University of Central Florida met the criteria. I shot high-resolution slide images of the 66 paintings in the collection and digitized them in an uncompressed format. I continue to work with this collection in my investigation of how people search for and retrieve digital images.

Electronic Networks and Evaluation

As I continued my work with digital images, I became involved in the development of a multi-type library network through the State Library of Florida. I realized the importance of Internet access for Public Libraries early and worked diligently to help libraries incorporate new technologies through workshops and publications. In the midst of this campaign, I understood that electronic networks had great power to exclude underserved populations. I thought about the irony of building digital resources that would bring cultural heritage to everyone and yet deny access. As my knowledge of networks grew, it quickly became apparent that the advent of electronic, distributed networks complicated the problems of access and retrieval to digital images. I summarize the findings of a comparison of retrieval problems in a paper presented at the Louvre in 1997 [1]. My work with networks also led to an interest in how we evaluate networked information services. This interest is reflected in an article in 1998 on “Selection and Evaluation of Networked Information Resources” [2]. The evaluation of image retrieval systems continues to keep my interest. In a study of user generated index terms and user ratings of supplied index terms, I found a substantial need for user feedback in image retrieval systems. This is reported in “Evaluation of Image Retrieval Systems: Role of User Feedback” [3].

IMLS Fellows in Digital Image Management

I believe that part of the value of the classroom experience is in the melding of theory and practice. To this end, I combined my thinking about digital images, networks, evaluation and education in a proposal to the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in 1998 requesting funds to start a digital image management program. The program is discussed in the article, "Digital Image Managers: A Unique Partnership" [4]. The IMLS funds supported ten fellowships in our Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS) program. The findings from this 2-year project are presented in “What Are Digital Image Managers?” [5]

The success of the CAS program and my work with the doctoral students in the Interdisciplinary Information Science Ph.D. program encouraged me to request further funding from IMLS to support doctoral fellowships as well as masters and certificate fellowships. Two examples of collaborative work with the students are evidenced in “A Metadata Approach to Preservation of Digital Resources: The University of North Texas Libraries' Experience” [6] and “Informational Value of Museum Websites” [7]. The grant funds provided more than $400,000 in student support through fellowships.

For several years, most of my research activities went into the design and development of projects to support our nascent programs of study in Digital Image Management. All of these projects are products of student teamwork. Some of the students are IMLS fellows, partially funded by federal monies as described above. The majority of the graduate students I have worked with believe that art, beauty and knowledge are the seeds of life and working to improve access to our culture and other cultures is very important work. A listing of selected projects follows with links to their web pages.

Teaching Philosophy

I believe that in addition to conveying the theoretical basis of the field, students must be challenged to think critically and creatively about their professional roles and responsibilities. Through discussion and debate in a non-threatening environment, I encourage students to use knowledge and investigation as keys to problem-solving and creative thinking. I continually explore methods to improve interaction in the classroom and across distances. I try to integrate real world experiences as reflected by team work and product development in all courses and I help students build analytical tool boxes capable of meeting the challenges produced by rapid technological change. It is my hope that my students take with them some of my passion for cultural heritage and the institutions that protect it.

Service

I represent my scholarly community at state, national and international professional societies. I served as president for the American Society for Information Science & Technology in 2004. I have talked on everything from "Privacy and Freedom in Cyberspace" to "The Role of Intelligent Agents in Information Retrieval" at over 50 conferences in the last five years. In addition, I serve as reviewer for the Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation and the Association of Computing Machines.

I try to be a good citizen. I say the words `libraries' and `culture' every chance I get. I work collaboratively with libraries, museums, and the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services in a variety of roles. I worry about universal service and equitable access to electronic networked services. I continue to explore and develop methodologies for the evaluation of networked services and perhaps most importantly I believe in the academy. I treasure the opportunities that education and learning provide us all. I am committed to ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to interact with cultural objects, whether onsite or online.

Summary

As you may be able to tell by now, I truly love my work. I enjoy new frontiers and am excited by the possibilities that my work with libraries and museums may hold for applications requiring new and creative technologies. For example, the 3D image datasets generated by High Resolution X-Ray Tomography allow the reconstruction of the object in a plastic resin, complete with texture and color. Imagine a fifth grade classroom in a remote area studying Mayan culture. Image a resin printer in the school that “prints” a copy of a Mayan vase that depicts children playing a game in detail. Imagine the children touching the vase, exploring the relief with their fingers, closing their eyes and imagining the game. . .[7]

My work at the University of South Carolina promises to hold many opportunities but it is our work with literacy initiatives that I find most valuable right now. Everyone deserves the chance to learn to read and I am very proud to be part of an institution that is doing something to make it better.

References:

Distributed Network versus a Closed System. In Hemsley, James (ed.),

EVA'97 Paris: Images Numeriques Appliquees aus Arts Visuels., 1997.

Library Trends 48 (2) 422-436, 1999.

The Acquisitions Librarian (no.20) 109-122, 1998.

First Monday 5 (6), June. http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_6/hastings/index.html 

Spectra 26 (2) 18-24, 2000.

North Texas Libraries' Experience. Co-authored with D. Gelaw and C. Hartman

First Monday 7 (8) August, 2002. http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_8/alemneh/index.html