Pitt upgrades Zoomify interface for Audubon’s Birds of America

I wrote an earlier post about the University of Pittsburgh Digital Research Library’s newest image collection, Audubon’s Birds of America. In it, I criticized their use of the tool Zoomify to display their scans of John James Audubon’s famous set of ornithological plates. If you take a look at the collection now, you will notice that the Zoomify window can be resized by the user. Although not a complete fix, this feature certainly makes the website more useable; I applaud the DRL for implementing the change.

There has been a discussion – here and over at PhiloBiblios – about the $300 fee for ordering a print from the collection. Was Pitt using Zoomify to control the rights to their images by limiting the public’s access to the full images? The move to improve Zoomify has waylaid this fear, in my mind. If anyone wanted to, it would be relatively easy to grab an entire plate to either print (at a place like Kinko’s) or post on the internet. However, it is important to note that the University stresses “Digital files are not for sale.” [1] (The bold is theirs.)

Now the question seems to be whether the print Pitt offers is – to put it blunty – overpriced. And if so, if it is ethical for Pitt to overcharge in the name of recouping their digitization expenditures. (They do seem to have a monopoly on the business. If you take a look at eBay, you’ll find that the online auction site is flooded with small, low quality Audubon reproductions starting at about $10.)

My response to this is that Pitt claims their reproductions are near facsimile quality. (With that said, I’m sure Walter Benjamin is rolling over in his grave!) This means that, in all likelihood, printing these images does cost significantly more than one would suspect. Although I can’t offer any figures on how much materials and labor cost, I don’t think the ratio of actual to sales price is obscene. (Nothing like the markup associated with CDs.)

As for the fee helping to recoup losses, Pitt hasn’t attempted to justify the price using this trope. (Although if they were to comment on the price, I’d wager this would be the first defense they’d employ.) As I don’t think the price is exorbinant – you are purchasing a high-quality luxury good, after all – and because I like the idea of libraries branching out to become more economically sustainable, I don’t have a problem with this. There is a (mis)conception that academic libraries are black holes when it comes to money: the budget/grants go in and “nothing” comes out. I guess this could be used to accuse me of adopting a business mindset when it comes to library management. I don’t think that’s necessarily true, however.

On a slightly related note, I’m seriously considering having the little buggers on plate 134 tattooed on my flank. Talk me out of it, library folk! ;-)

Bibliography:

1. University of Pittsburgh. “audubon_reproductions.pdf.” Audubon’s Birds of America at the University of Pittsburgh. University of Pittsburgh. http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/audubon_reproductions.pdf (14 March 2008).

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).