About artists’ books online
Artists’ Books online is a joint project with State Library of Queensland and Education Queensland’s e-learning environment, the Learning Place [new window http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/].
The project aims to
- showcase the State Library’s collection of artists’ books
- provide access to people who are not able to visit the library in person
- provide high quality curriculum materials to assist teachers to integrate artists books into the classroom
- preserve the original works of art by minimising handling
Selection of artists' books
The State Library of Queensland has a unique collection of over 500 artists' books by Australian and international artists. The artists’ books are a collection strength of the Australian Library of Art. A small selection of these was chosen for the Artists’ Books Online project. The books were chosen to cover a wide range of styles and themes.
Copyright clearances and artists' statements
A significant aspect of the project was locating and contacting artists whose books we hoped to use. In many cases we did not have current contact details and a variety of methods were used to track people down. These included checking telephone directories and asking galleries or agents to let artists know that we were trying to contact them.
A letter was then sent to the artists, poets, binders and anyone else involved with the books asking them to sign and return a non-exclusive copyright agreement allowing the State Library of Queensland to use images of their books for non profit purposes. Artists were also asked to complete an artist’s statement for their works.
Teachers' involvement
Expressions of interest were invited from teachers interested in engaging with the State Library of Queensland's collection of Artists' Books. A range of teachers from different Key Learning Areas and phases of learning were selected.
Teachers were released from their schools for two days to:
- spend time at the State Library of Queensland with Australian Library of Art staff exploring the Artists' Books collection
- participate in a practical workshop with one of the featured artists, Adele Outteridge
- conduct professional development with Senior Education Officer, The Arts from Curriculum Strategy Branch within Education Queensland, unpacking the existing Artists Books module
From this two day workshop teachers developed units of work, activities and resources that they then implemented within their classes. Having evaluated and subsequently refined their units of work, these curriculum resources were then made available as education support materials for the Artists' Books Online project.
The completed units of work, from a range of Key Learning Areas and all phases of learning, will be shared with teachers around Queensland through the Learning Place [new window http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/] thus exposing a greater number of teachers to the State Library of Queensland collection.
Capturing the images
The State Library’s Image Production Unit (IPU) photographed the artists’ books and then digitised the images. IPU use a Fuji S3 Pro Digital Camera and a Microtek ArtixScan 2020 to produce a digitised reproduction at the required resolution. These may be enhanced in Adobe Photoshop CS2.
When capturing digital images, IPU use the standard established in the State Library of Queensland’s Digital Standard 2 – Digital capture, format & file naming, version 2 [new window 344 kb 
]. Preservation quality scans are typically captured at 400ppi for colour images or 600ppi for back & white images. The TIFF master files are transferred to our server and staff from our Information, Communications Technology Services (ICTS) uniit use ImageMagik to generate derivative JPEG files for web delivery. Three JPEG files are created:
- a thumbnail image, 150 pixels across the longest dimension;
- a preview image, 500 pixels across the longest dimension; and
- a research image, 1000 pixels across the longest dimension.
Directory and file naming conventions for artists’ books are detailed in Digital Standard 2 [new window 344 kb ].
More information
If you have an Australian Library of Art related enquiry, you can contact us in any of the following ways:
- Telephone +61 7 3840 7880
- Fax +61 7 3842 9126
For general enquiries:
- Ask at your local Queensland public library
- Other libraries [new window http://www.nla.gov.au/libraries/]
Last updated: 6th September 2007
Creatively linking Queenslanders to information, knowledge and each other
