Departments News & Features Arts Research Briefs In the News Bulletin Board Health Matters BU Yesterday Contact Us Advertising Rates

Week of 29 January 1999 Vol. II, No. 21 Feature Article Art History's Visual Resources Collection brings the Louvre to BU By J. Nicole Long The curator of the Museum of Fine Arts has 500,000 works in his care. Although Arleen Arzigian has only half as many, she possesses masterpieces that the MFA could only dream of exhibiting: Michelangelo's David, da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and Van Gogh's Starry Night, among others. No, she is not an art thief. Arzigian is director of the CAS Art History Visual Resources Collection, one of the largest such collections in New England. When a professor or student needs a slide of a famous objet d'art, chances are the art history department's Slide Library has it. And as the collection increased in quantity over the years, the quality -- and size -- of the library's facilities needed to keep up with changing technologies. A decade ago, the library was a cramped 900-square-foot room where Arzigian typed adhesive slide labels on a manual typewriter. Little more than a storehouse for the visual material professors used in their lectures, the library was often packed with students who crowded in to study the images. In the summer of 1997, however, the Slide Library received a grant from the dean's office that funded its expansion into two CAS classrooms and the purchase of new computer equipment. "The grant allowed us to go forward with updating our operations," says Arzigian. The library now uses an Apple computer and a Nikon scanner, which resembles a miniature hard drive. "Instead of putting a disk in the slot, we insert a slide," says Arzigian. "The image is digitized and stored through the scanner." With the help of Media Specialist Maryann Kabarsky and student interns, Arzigian is developing a computer database that will eventually replace the library's card catalog. Users will be able to locate items in the database by entering the artist's name, birth date, period, or country. Another project funded by the grant is the development of Web sites as a supplemental tool for academic lectures. Kabarsky is responsible for designing and maintaining sites for five courses, including Contemporary Art Since 1940, Northern Baroque Art, and the History of Photography. "Even the most technophobic of the faculty end up really liking Web sites," says Kabarsky. Professors of American studies, English, music, theology, and archaeology are among the faculty who sign out the library's slides for lectures and reserve "review carousels" so that students can later study in groups. The Web sites, accessible exclusively to those with passwords, enable BU students to study at their own computer terminals. Arleen Arzigian, in the Art History Slide Library. Photo by Vernon Doucette "But students aren't limited to learning in isolation," says Arzigian. "We have computer view-stations with enough room for several students to study together if they choose." Indeed, observing artwork in groups often brings out the best in students. "A conversation about art is how a lot of the learning takes place," she says. Still, students obviously need elbow room. Like the MFA on the open