Structures of Image Collections – From Chauvet‐Pont‐d'Arc to Flickr

Citation

Kaden, B. (2009), "Structures of Image Collections – From Chauvet‐Pont‐d'Arc to Flickr", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 315-316. https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830910968308

The front page of flickr.com, one of the best known and most quoted examples of the success of so‐called “user‐generated content” which Web 2.0 is famous for, reveals what photography in numbers means today. There are about 5000 uploads a minute. The simple word “upload” refers to a chain of actions, commonly ranging from taking the photo to copying it to a computer, choosing it for further processing, editing it with software, loading it onto flickr. There, images are usually sorted into image pools that may be described as categorisation, labelled with keywords (“tags”), and shared via groups. Obviously, this kind of image collection incorporates a range of actions and decisions from production to organisation to consumption. In itself, this is not completely novel. Compared with pre‐digital, mass appeal photography, the new digital photo universe accessible via the web lies within the quantitative photographic intake and output, the means of hypertextual enrichment and the simplicity of making ones images seen. Everyone who is able to handle a digital camera and the internet may contribute images to the evolving, shared picture pool in the web, that sometimes appears more like a shoebox than an archive.

Given, the ideal of an understandable and retrievable collection, the existing situation raises some fairly difficult handling issues for those who are professionally involved. Additionally, there is the matter of professionally‐produced images that increasingly are mixed with the platforms of user‐generated content. An information professional who in this situation may turn to Greisdorf and O'Connor's work in expectation of clear assistance will see only that there is no solution to find. That is not what the book, more‐or‐less an elaborate musing on the problems raised, is meant to provide. It starts with very basic explanation of how seeing works, moves on to semantics and semiotics of images and the particular implications for usage, then eventually focuses on aspects regarding the structure of collections. The fourth part digs into basics of psychological phenomena like Groupthink and formulates brief “questions for selecting the corporate collection”. Finally, the fifth part looks at “lessons for the future”, which includes, for example, four pages on “mathematics of image structure”.

The authors tackle an impressive variety of aspects related to the structure of image collections, but the overall impression may be summarised as too many aspects, too condensed. Of course, the book obviously is neither a manual nor a guidebook, but a title to open up a wider point of view and stimulate curiosity. Nevertheless, many of the topics broached, might have been more clearly and usefully presented by prioritising a few and leaving others for additional publications on this topic. As a point of department for thinking more deeply and elaborating one's understanding, the book is not decisive enough and leaves one with a plethora of keywords and concepts that sound interesting but often lack depth and clarity. Therefore, after reading this work, the prevailing feeling is that further studies must be sought; unfortunately, the authors do not deliver a bibliography to assist in this. In view of this shortcoming, this work is recommended only to those who want the simplest of overviews of a complex topic.