Pitt unveils digitized Audubon prints

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:

1. 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).
2. Digital Research Library. The Darlington Digital Library. University of Pittsburgh. http://digital.library.pitt.edu/d/darlington/ (3 March 2008).
3. 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).
4. 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).