A giant art database offering thousands of photos of paintings, sculptures and architecture throughout history began accepting clients Monday.
ARTstor, which currently offers 300,000 of the most famous art images used in the enjoyment and teaching of art, is planned to hold more than 500,000 images when the database is accessible in July. The ARTstor program includes the art-image database, the software to use the images and a “restricted usage environment” designed to balance the content providers’ needs with the demands of the subscribers.
The database extends to higher-education facilities, museums and other institutions interested in working with the large art database.
ARTstor’s Executive Director James Shulman said the database was prompted by students looking for an easier and more helpful way of studying.
“The way artistry used to be taught, [students] would have to go somewhere to look up a wall full of photos to study from,” Shulman said.
Shulman said institutions have begun to digitize their archives, which has allowed for students to review the materials, access them from the Internet and has allowed faculty to create colorful and effective course websites from the material.
“[The database] just makes sense,” he said.
Shulman added that ARTstor could revolutionize the way the arts are taught and viewed at institutions, because the database allows professors to group and save images for easy access while planning a lecture.
The cost for access to ARTstor’s services varies depending on the size of the institution, from “Very Large Institutions” to “Very Small Institutions” and community colleges.
ARTstor’s sponsor, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, described a “Very Large Institution” as the largest research university, a “Research 1,” on the database’s website, but does not give any number ranges.
ARTstor requires subscribing institutions to pay two fees for the service — an archive capital fee (ACF) and an annual access fee (AAF). ARTstor’s website said the ACF fee is designed to keep the database updated and the AAF contributes to ARTstor’s annual costs, such as improving the ARTstor software.
For a “Very Large University,” the AAF cost is $20,000 and the ACF cost is $40,000.
Since the database is slated to hold 500,000 images by its release date in July 2006, the fees for the service will be lessened until the full archive of images is available to users. For subscribers in 2004, ARTstor will only charge 60 percent of the AAF fee and 80 percent the following year. In 2006, ARTstor plans to collect the full fees.
“[ARTstor] is trying to make the point that it’s definitely cheaper than doing it themselves,” Shulman said. “For people who already study art history, it’s great, but for people that don’t have any reason to, [the image database] provides easier access to all the best images.”
Shulman said ARTstor is planning to extend their services to K-12 grades, and the current service is not limited to use by art affiliates and can be used in all departments.
University of Wisconsin Associate Professor of Art Education Theresa Marche said although the program sounds useful, some institutions may be unable to reap the real benefits of the database.
“Like anything else online, it really depends on the technology [an institution] has to utilize it,” Marche said. “The usefulness of [the database] depends on whether or not you could project the images [to a class].”
Marche, who taught as an art specialist for 20 years in public elementary schools, said many classrooms do not have the proper technology to pass on all the benefits of such a system to the students.
“Many schools don’t even have an art room, much less an art room with a computer projection technology,” she said. “[The database] seems very useful where the sources exist.”
Marche also said the UW art department does not have the funding to subscribe to such a service. “There is no silver bullet that will make teaching instantly better,” she said. “It’s highly unlikely that the money [to fund such a program] will be found in our department.”
