Digital Content Library: The 21st-century slide library

It's 2 a.m. and you need an image of an Eames chair for a presentation. Where do you go?

The Digital Content Library (DCL), a resource collaboratively built and shared by the College of Design (CDes) and the College of Liberal Arts (CLA), can help. The DCL enables users to search thousands of items from any Web browser across design and liberal arts disciplines, collections, and content type--image, audio, and video.

The DCL Web site (www.dcl.umn.edu) provides a single-page portal for searching multiple collections simultaneously or just a single collection. CDes collections represent the three academic departments: architecture; design, housing, and apparel; and landscape architecture. Titles and keywords are hot-linked so users can click on the words to initiate a new search returning images, video, or audio. Among the 20 liberal arts disciplines available are art history, geography, and theater arts and dance.

Thumbnail images and descriptions are available to the public, as are some larger images, depending upon collection rights and copyright. All larger images, along with audio and video, are available only to University faculty, staff, and students. Images can be used under the Fair Use provision of U.S. copyright law.

The project was initiated by the collection directors, Jodie Walz (CDes) and Rebecca Moss (CLA). Staff members from both collections played key roles in designing and implementing the online resource. The DCL collaboration has grown exponentially since its launch in August 2006, and the directors hope to expand services to all University of Minnesota campuses.

"The College of Design and the College of Liberal Arts have proven that by working together across disciplines we can create an innovative product that is greater than the sum of its parts," said Walz. "In the spirit of collaboration in the digital age a community was born, in addition to a new paradigm of collection management and development that, we hope, can be replicated at other universities."