May 22, 2001

--Digital Scriptorium puts Insight® to the Test
--Rumsey Map Collection Continues to Grow
--Next Stop: American Library Association in San Francisco
--NEA Offers New Online Resource to Arts Funding

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Digital Scriptorium puts Insight to the Test

Luna's Insight® software is being used to provide enriched access to a portion of the images and data in the Digital Scriptorium, an image database of dated and datable medieval and renaissance manuscripts that is intended to unite scattered resources into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research.

The Digital Scriptorium currently consists of approximately 8,500 color images from the joined holdings of the Berkeley and Columbia-affiliated libraries, as well as a growing number of other participating institutions. It has evolved into a general union catalog designed for the use of paleographers, codicologists, art historians, textual scholars and other researchers. As a visual catalog, it allows scholars to verify with their own eyes cataloguing information about places and dates of origin, scripts, artistic styles, and quality.

Through the generosity of a grant from the International Foundation of the Performing Arts, a subset of 500 images from the collection is now available in a test database using Luna's Insight® software at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Scriptorium/luna.html.

Scholars that use the materials provided in the Digital Scriptorium are being asked to provide their feedback about the availability of the collection using Insight®. The software provides a rich set of tools that, among other things, will provide users online access to an advanced search engine to find high resolution images in the collection and the ability to zoom, pan and conduct side by side comparisons of the images. Insight® also gives professors and researchers the ability to save image groups and display them in the classroom or for lectures and presentations using digital projectors.

For more information about grants made available through the International Foundation of the Performing Arts to enable digital access to collections, please contact Nancy Harm at nancy@luna-img.com or call 1-800-452-LUNA (5862).

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Rumsey Map Collection Continues to Grow

Collector David Rumsey recently added 1,406 maps to his growing online collection of 18th and 19th century North and South American cartographic materials. The collection includes atlases, globes, school geographies, maritime charts, and a variety of separate maps including pocket, wall, children's and manuscript maps. Recent additions to this publicly accessible collection, which now exceeds 4000 images, include an 1880 topographical map that is one of the earliest to show the Los Angeles area in detail, as well as J.B. Homann's Atlas Methodicus from 1719, one of the earliest teaching atlases.

Using Luna Imaging's Insight® software, the maps are experienced in a revolutionary way. Multiple maps from different time periods can be viewed side-by-side. Or, the end user can create their own collection of maps by saving groups of images that hold particular interest. Complete cataloging data accompanies every image, allowing for in-depth searches of the collection.

Unlike other online image collections that are constrained by low resolution or extensive downloading times, Rumsey's collection of high-resolution digital images can be quickly accessed and easily managed. The collection is accessible in two formats on the web site. It can be viewed using Luna's Insight® software on a standard browser such as Explorer or Netscape. The Insight® java client can be downloaded for researchers and those desiring advanced software functionality.

Digitization of the collection began four years ago by Rumsey's company, Cartography Associates, primarily to make the collection accessible and usable. In their original form, the maps and atlases can be large and unwieldy. The online collection is available to the public along with more information about the collection at http://www.davidrumsey.com.

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Next Stop: American Library Association in San Francisco

Libraries in the digital age is one of the major focuses at the upcoming conference of the American Library Association in San Francisco with topics ranging from the new trend in distributed digital libraries to representing the world's languages online. These are also issues Luna Imaging is helping to address with libraries and museums across the nation with ongoing developments and updates to our Insight® software. Stop by our booth in the exhibition hall to learn more about new Insight® features, which now support multilingual collections and allow for cross-collection searching. In addition, audio and video files are now supported in Insight® along with a rich set of tools for zooming, panning and conducting side by side comparisons of high resolution images online.

Exhibits at the ALA conference will be open at the Moscone Center from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. June 16-18 and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on June 19. Visit Luna at booth # 1036. Those who are not registered for the conference can obtain an exhibition hall pass for $20. For more information about the conference, go to the ALA's web site at www.ala.org/events/ac2001/

Following are other conferences Luna Imaging plans to attend in the coming year:

7/13: California Association of Museums, Los Angeles
8/27 - 9/2: Society of American Archivists (SAA), Washington, D.C.
10/24-27: Museum Computer Network (MCN), Cincinnati, OH
11/6-8: Internet Librarian 2001, Pasadena, CA

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NEA Provides New Online Resource to Arts Funding

The National Endowment for the Arts recently launched a new online tool to help connect organizations with funding resources to support the arts. Users can search the database for a variety of federal agencies that may provide funding opportunities. For example, the U.S. Department of Education provides the Technology Innovation Grants Program, which awards funding to local education agencies that are part of a consortium to improve and expand new applications of technology that strengthen the school reform effort, improve student learning and provide sustained professional development of teachers, administrators, and school library media personnel.

The site also provides a searchable database of grants awarded over the past several years to programs nationwide by a variety of federal agencies. Grant seekers can search to see how similar organizations accessed federal dollars for arts and cultural programs. The "Cultural Funding: Federal Opportunities" database can be accessed online at www.arts.endow.gov/federal.html.

In addition, guidelines and applications for NEA grants to support heritage preservation projects are provided in the Web site. The application deadline for organizations seeking NEA heritage preservation grants, which can range from $5,000 - $150,000 and be used to support digital imaging projects, is August 13.