Metadata for African Art

Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Steven Nelson, Art History

With the Honors section of Art History 28, “Intro to African Art,” Steven is exploring the combination of Artstor’s Shared Shelf and Omeka to better introduce students to the basic work of the art historian and the librarian. Each student will have a group of images for which she is responsible (from the UCLA Art History department’s Visual Resources Collection), and during the quarter will catalog those images in Shared Shelf and then use Omeka to mount a digital exhibition about the work that was done. In the process, students will learn how to think about the categories of art, learn how to use presentation software, and gain experience in visualizing and organizing an online exhibit.

HumTech is helping Steven integrate Shared Shelf and Omeka, and providing training and support to the students using the software. This project will also help Steven evaluate Shared Shelf’s effectiveness as a portal to the UCLA Art History department’s Visual Resources Collection, and make a recommendation to his colleagues.