Image searching

Looking for images? -- questions to ask yourself:

1. What do I need the image for?
(e.g. private study, essay, presentation)
2. Where is the best quality image to be found?
(e.g. galleries and databases)
3. Which image should I choose?
(see image properties)
4. Which Websites are best to use?
(e.g. institutional Websites are to be recommended)
5. Do I have permission to use the image?
(Check the terms and conditions of use on the host site.
If posting online, if in doubt, hyperlink out to the host site)
6. Where should I begin my search?
(try the current location of the image if known)

Finding images online is not always easy. Remember that you may have to visit a number of sites to find what you are looking for. Always try and locate the biggest image you can find online. If you click on an image you can find its properties. This will tell you its size. Images are measured in pixels per inch. So, the higher the number of pixels the better the quality of the image. Most images you will be looking for are in JPEG format. You know this because the file extension is dot JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). JPEG is a form of compression called "lossy compression" and is used for images (photographs). The more the JPEG is saved (therefore re-compressing an already compressed image) the more information about that image is lost. If you try and enlarge a small JPEG image you will loose quality and the image will become pixelated. In other words, it will look blurry. Try and select the largest image you can find online.

For help with finding images visit TASI

Digital rights: examples from the visual arts

In today's global economy, knowledge capital, as opposed to physical capital, is central. The rights of content providers need to be considered with and interests of content users. Higher education institutions in the UK have signed up to the DACS (Design and Artists Copyright Society) Agreement. By this agreement the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) are permitted to include all artistic works in its licences and for DACS to receive a share of that revenue. In Ireland, the agreement between the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency (ICLA) and the Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVRO) appears to be a similar arrangement.

Nowadays museums and other cultural institutions are increasingly making their collections available online. Broadly speaking, galleries and museums in the United States will only allow users to browse their online collections. The downloading of images is only permitted for personal use. Hyerlinks gallery sites and their image collections can be legally served online. In some cases, sites request that the hyerlink can only legally operate if it opens in a separate window of the browser. Broadly speaking, in the UK and Europe it is the responsibility of the individual or institution to obtain permission from copyright holders or their agents before a reproduction of works or any other content is made, or this will constitute an infringement of copyright. In Europe, the principal copyright collecting societies are: ADAGP for France, BILDKUNST for Germany, VEGAP for Spain and ARS for the United States.

Wikicommons on Wikipedia is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. Many of the art images on Wikipedia are in the public domain in the United States under the terms of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) 1998, but this may not be the case in other countries. So, the copyright status of images needs to be checked on an individual bases.

The Web: a different way to read?

The Internet is like a giant web of information all interconnected through links called hyperlinks. Established reading patterns emphasise the importance of close reading consisting of textual analysis, comprehension, and critical reflection often involving re-reading the text. Online reading experiences do not map exactly onto existing literacy patterns. Reading on the Internet places emphasis on searching, scanning, jumping, and filtering information. Internet reading is often a fast, multi-attention, communal act as seen by web blogs, twitters, and online wikis. Search-engines read Web pages by filtering hits according to popularity or relevance to an online community. Information Communication Technology (ICT) has merged into Information Society Technology (IST). Social networking sites are called Web 2.0. New patterns of online reading complement the emerging technologies that increasingly allow computers to read and write autonomously to each other across platforms and applications such as in XML (Extensible Markup Language) based technologies that underlie the new online text databases, archives, and RSS (Really Simple Syndication, also known as “web syndication”) feeds.

Watch Mike Wesch's YouTube video about Web 2.0 How is the Web affecting ways we gather information and use it?

Digitial images: what does the future hold?

If you have seen the film Minority Report, directed by Steven Spielberg, based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, you may remember seeing characters using touch screen technology and 3D image tools with not a keyboard or mouse in sight. Was this science fiction or is it science fact?

The future? -- touch screen with 3D image interface

CityWall is a large multi-touch display installed in a central location in Helsinki which acts as a collaborative interface for the everchanging media landscape of the city. The new interface launched in October 2008 also allows working with 3D objects, which enables multiple content and multiple timelines. This may be how we will shortly be using technology.

Microsoft will launch touch screen for Windows 7 in 2009.
How will new interfaces affect the ways we store, share, and source information?