Today the University of Pittsburgh’s Digital Research Library unveiled their newest image collection, Audubon’s Birds of America. (Read the press release here.) It consists of all 435 prints, originally distributed between 1827 and 1838, that served as the foundation for the famous ornithologist’s book, Birds of America. [1]
The original plates reside in the New-York Historical Society, and only 120 complete print sets are known to exist. [1] Pitt’s Double Elephant folio – estimated to be the “single most valuable set of volumes” their library system owns – came to them by way of William M. Darlington, who purchased the folio in 1852 for a mere $400. [1] The prints were donated to the University, after his death, in either 1918 or 1925 by his daughters Mary (left) and Edith (right). [2, 4] Bird enthusiasts can also purchase (PDF) high-quality digital prints of their favorite birds for $300.
One of the most brilliant aspects of the collection is that the metadata for each individual plate has a hyperlink to the bird’s entry in Audubon’s Ornithological Biography, a companion work to Birds of America in five volumes, that Pitt has digitized in their Darlington Digital Library collection. (To see Pitt’s DRL staff scanning Darlington books, check out their YouTube videos here and here.) Both collections can be browsed and searched by keyword. The only problem with the execution is that integration between the two resources is not seamless. When jumping from one collection to the other, the switch between interfaces is a bit jarring.
Detail of Plate II, the Yellow-billed Cuckoo. [3] Note how small the viewing window is (in relation to the plate’s full resolution) and how part of the image is obscured.
Pitt’s offering is plagued by a significant technical shortcoming. Although the website is well-designed, the technology used to display the prints is severely lacking. Pitt has chosen to use Zoomify, a service that allows users to zoom and drag and drop images on the fly to view details. (The Met’s Timline of Art History has recently adopted a similar zooming tool, unfortunately.) Although fancy, Zoomify has many glaring deficiencies. Users cannot save the images by right clicking. Instead – if they even know they can – they’ll have use the “Print Screen” button and paste the resulting screen shot into image editing software. This wouldn’t be a problem if Zoomify’s viewing window didn’t have so many limitations: it’s small, non-resizable, and the controls (bottom) and detail guide (upper left) eat up a considerable amount of the viewing window. Thus, patching together a large, high quality image will require a considerable time commitment and level of technical prowess.
Compare an image entry from the Darlington Family Photographs collection. The system isn’t particularly intuitive: users must first select the largest frame size, then repeatedly click on the “+” sign, then the image to zoom in. However, saving a large, higher quality image is simple using this interface.
As of now, the gorgeous prints Pitt has digitized are effectively useless. Until Pitt’s DRL offers an alternative to the hobbling Zoomify interface, this collection will remain a curiosity rather than the definitive online tool for reference and teaching in relation to Audubon’s prints. This shortcoming can be addressed by a version of Zoomify that dynamically adapts to the user’s screen size (like Google Maps), the ability to hide the control and detail guide, and a link (in the entries’ left hand column) to a high-quality JPG of the plate.
Update: 14 March 2008
Pitt’s DRL has updated their Zoomify interface; users can now resize the viewing window manually, resolving many of the problems I detailed above. Read my new post about it here.
Bibliography:
- Digital Research Library. Audubon’s Birds of America at the University of Pittsburgh. University of Pittsburgh. http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/about.html (3 March 2008).
- Digital Research Library. The Darlington Digital Library. University of Pittsburgh. http://digital.library.pitt.edu/d/darlington/ (3 March 2008).
- Digital Research Library. Full record for Audubon’s Birds of America: AUD0002. University of Pittsburgh. http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?c=audimg;button1=Go;q1=cuckoo;rgn1=audimg_all;sid=4bfa3b099ad0cbdcca074cd44d4061f2;size=20;lasttype=simple;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;subvie (3 March 2008).
- Digital Research Library. Full record for Darlington Family Photographs (ASC): 4.28.DA. University of Pittsburgh. http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?sid=693a0a9f161893500d60fff57de5a471;g=imls;med=1;q1=edith;rgn1=darlfamily_su;q2=mary;op2=And;rgn2=darlfamily_su;size=20;c=darlfamily;lasttype= (3 March 2008).
I wonder if they made image-saving difficult on purpose, especially since they’ll be selling reproductions.
I was just thinking (out loud) about this at philobiblos.
I constantly battle with zoomify. I actually love it. A lot. It is wonderful to be able to get in real close. But I am also a constant large image splicer from screencaps so the interface equally annoys the life out of me.
Hmmm….I wonder if a firefox greasemonkey script or similar plugin could get around the screen size limitations?
I imagine the response argument to Erin’s observation would be that they save the library and the user bandwidth by delivering it via zoomify.
It is a beautiful display option. To be able to resize like that on the fly is a feat of web-based technology, and a lot of people are wowed by it. (Myself included, at times.) It’s just not practical for anything other than relatively casual viewing.
From what I’ve heard, Zoomify requires much more bandwidth and storage space, because the original image is broken down into many much smaller (but very high quality) images. (At least in this case.) The number 400 is sticking in my head, but don’t quote me on that. I will see if I can find a citation for some of this information, haha!
I’ll look into that FireFox extension and let you know what I find. Thanks for letting me know about it!