[artbooks] Artists' Books online

http://www.artistsbooksonline.org/mission.html

>From "About the site":

Site Mission
Artists' Books Online is designed to promote critical engagement with 
artists books and to provide access to a digital repository of metadata, 
scans, and commentary. The project serves several different communities: 
artists, scholars and critics, librarians and curators, and interested 
readers. ABsOnline operates as an online collection with curatorial 
guidelines established by an advisory board of professionals. Founded in 
2004 ABsOnline is an ongoing project hosted at the University of Virginia 
under the direction of Johanna Drucker and with assistance from staff and 
interns working with the University Library and its units in digital 
scholarship. Anyone interested in participating in the project should 
contact us directly for guidelines on submissions. 

Site Basics: The Conceptual Framework of Artists' Books Online
ABsOnline consists of files that display artists' books, exhibits, essays, 
and links to other collections or resource materials for this field. There 
is an index of agents (authors, publishers, binders, printers etc. of 
books and works represented), titles (of works, books, and sometimes 
objects), contributors (authors of essays, exhibits, commentary), and of 
collections and other resources. The indices are currently under 
development.
The core of ABsOnline is the presentation of artists' books in digital 
format. Books are represented by descriptive information, or metadata, 
that follows a three-level structure taken from the field of 
bibliographical studies: work, edition, and object. An additional level, 
images, provides for display of the work from cover to cover in a complete 
series of page images (when available), or representative images.
A basic understanding of the way the categories work, edition, and object 
are understood will be helpful for anyone using this collection, either as 
a contributor or a reader. The three levels operate according to a 
hierarchy, and each lower level "inherits" the properties of the category 
above (an object has all the characteristics of the edition of which it is 
a part, for instance).
Work: The highest category in the hierarchy should be understood as the 
overall idea or concept for the project as a whole. An example might be 
Pattie Belle Hasting's Scarlet Genome, which is conceived as a work with 
performances, a book, other documentation, and component parts. A "work" 
cannot be copyrighted, only elements within it that are actually produced 
are subject to copyright protection. The category of work is used to 
organize all the many component parts of a project, but anything related 
to actual production should go either at the edition level, or (in certain 
cases) with the object.
Edition: This includes all production information and materials for an 
edition, including but not necessarily limited to the actual texts, 
images, layouts and dummies, manuscripts, correspondence about production 
or reception, edition size, physical characteristics, design, and so on. A 
work may have several editions, and an edition will contain one or more 
objects.
Object: At this level a specific object, or instance, is being described. 
In cataloguing or description, this is the example one has in one's hands, 
and it will likely have some individuating characteristics: an 
inscription, a number, damage, repairs, anomalies from the printing 
process, an individual or unique binding, a provenance, an owner, and so 
on.
Images: These are page images from front to back, including spine, 
foredge, covers, end sheets, blank pages, and so on. We chose the page 
instead of the spread for maximum flexibility, but artists' chosing to 
scan their work in spreads will be able to display them in this manner.
Exhibits are curated by contributors in this online environment in exactly 
the same way they would be in a gallery setting. Exhibits have a theme, 
focus, or idea at their core and are accompanied by a statement or texts 
and become a permanent part of the site.
Essays are written by contributors who are either solicited or who propose 
a piece for publication. Essays draw on and contribute to the ABsOnline 
collection and become a permanent part of the site.
Collections are either linked to redirect a user to another site or are 
aggregated virtually in a way that allows them to appear seamlessly 
integrated into ABsOnline.
Indexes are organized by agent (works on the site), contributor (to the 
site), essay title, exhibit title, and collections.
A note on nomenclature: many of the terms used in this site, like "agent" 
to stand for any of the roles (author, printer, illustrator, publisher, 
binder, photographer, designer, etc.) that an individual might play in the 
conception or production of a work, are defined in the glossary. The 
nomenclature is taken from bibliographical conventions of professional 
cataloguing and descriptive methods. It is not meant to be confusing, but 
it may be unfamiliar, and every effort has been made to be consistent 
throughout the site, and to make the glossary complete. Please contact us 
with any questions or confusions.

© 2006 Artists' Books Online 




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