Clients & Projects

Multi-year project to improve use of Getty vocabularies for enhanced searching of all Getty websites and resources. Dozens of Getty offices create and/or use vocabularies for cataloging and searching. One major goal is to foster consistent use of the vocabularies as well as capturing new terms from numerous systems. Issues of data and its meaning, workflow, and system integration are foremost.

February 2002 - present

Design and development of formats, XML schemas, and conversion specifications for contribution to and distribution of the three Getty vocabularies (Art & Architecture Thesaurus, Thesaurus of Geographic Placenames, and Union List of Artist Names). Each vocabulary has three distribution formats: relational tables, XML, and MARC.

January 2001 - present

Analysis of the information and records management policies of the World Bank, especially with reference to how policies relate to electronic documents and media. Development of a comprehensive policy framework for current and future information management addressing documents in all media. Work with Bank staff to prepare new policy statements to address problems found in the analysis and comprehensive framework.

March - October 2000

Planning for public access to existing museum catalog and images and for extensive web-based educational programs to teach the significance of the objects. Recommendations for infrastructure improvements. Cost estimates and three-year implementation schedule. The planning resulted in the Museum's successful application to the Getty Grants Program for full implementation funding.

November 1998 - March 1999

Planning for an online catalog of collections data and images. Recommendations for collections-management system to replace existing custom system. Recommendations for public access to catalog. Development of imaging strategies for inhouse and public use. Cost estimates and three-year implementation schedule. The planning resulted in the Museum's successful application to the Getty Grants Program for full implementation funding.

August 1998 - March 1999

Ongoing support for planning and implementation of art information systems.

• Planning for replacement collections management system, especially conversion of data from multiple sources and multiple formats to Multi MIMSY.
• Acceptance test planning.
• Leadership of museum-wide imaging policy and planning team.
• Strategies for implementation of non-roman character sets for collections information, for gallery labels, for curatorial documents, and for web-based public catalog.
• Planning for integrated public access to collections data, library data, slide archives, and images. Development of prototype web catalog to data, images, documents, sounds, and videos.

May 1998 - September 2001

Planning for an integrated collections information system with public access. Exploration of options for Web access to integrated museum, library, and photo-archive data. Development of three-year implementation plan with costs. The planning resulted in the Museum's successful application to the Getty Grants Program for full implementation funding.

January - October 1998

Integrated searching of two websites: Lacma.org and CollectionsOnline, which use different technologies for indexing and retrieval.

Major technologies: Perl, MWeb XML Server, XSLT

In development

Ongoing work related to vocabulary and bibliographic data. Major activities include conversion into and out of XML, conversion into and out of MARC, development of test data, data validations, XML schema design.

Major technologies: Perl, PL/SQL, XML, Oracle, SQL Server

July 2004 - present

Conversion of the 6-million record file of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) to XML format. These new terms will then be added to the Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN).

Major technologies: Perl, XML

May 2003 - present

Conversion of authority records from the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals from MARC to XML. Conversion of authority records from the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) from Sybase to XML. The output of both conversions will be added to the Art & Architecture Thesaurus.

Major technologies: Sybase, Perl, XML

March 2003 - present

Mapping and conversion of the three Getty vocabularies from Oracle to export tables, XML, and MARC/Authorities. Development of XML schemas for the vocabularies to be used for all publications and contributions. (The three vocabularies are the Art & Architecture Thesaurus, the Thesaurus of Geographic Names, and the Union List of Artist Names).

Major technologies: Oracle, PL/SQL, Perl, XML

January 2001 - present

Development of a system to track workflow of photography, scanning, and image editing.

Major technologies: Microsoft Access, Visual Basic

Installed November 2000

Technical Lead for reconstruction of the Art & Archaeology Technical Abstracts database and subsequent web publication. Four systems had been used over time to manage this database; the project merges all four into one editorial system, and then exports in XML to a web-publication system.

This project had the following major components:

• Analysis: Development of sampling methods, data-mapping and conversion specifications, and cost analysis
• Project management: Overall day-to-day project management, including coordination of other contractors responsible for scanning/keying and the editorial system
• Date integrity: Primary responsibility for ensuring data correctness and completeness.
• Software to merge records from multiple sources
• Software to compare subject terms to the Art & Architecture Thesaurus to find current terminology
• Mapping and conversion to editorial system and from that to XML

Major technologies: Data modeling, Access, FoxPro, Perl, XML

August 2000 - December 2002

Upgrades to Newmatch system we developed in 1990 and which is still in use. Newmatch prevents duplicate records in the Conservation Information Network bibliographic database by implementing a sophisticated algorithm for matching records to find potential duplicates. Duplicates are presented to the editors on-screen in a format that permits merging 50 sets of duplicates per hour. Current work is primarily to convert the system to Windows, to change the underlying character set, and to provide more flexibility.

Major technologies: Delphi

Installed January 2000

MWeb provides a simple way for museums to make their collections and bibliographic data available over the web. MWeb provides simple and advanced searching, display of images, links to other media, and interactive forms.

More information and MWeb sites

September 1997 - present

Developer of Janus, the Web version of the Census of Antique Art & Architecture Known to the Renaissance, a large, complex database with images.

Janus is the first time that this 50-year-old database has been available to scholars without special equipment. Janus accesses data sources through SQL and ODBC, and images on multiple servers.

This system was completed in half the time (ten months) and at half the cost that the client had expected.

Article on the development of Janus

Installed March 1998

Technical assistance to the University of California Division of Library Automation with loading serials records from 800 libraries state-wide into the Melvyl online catalog.

March 1995 - June 1997

Developer of systems to provide access to high quality images and data. These systems are deployed in some of the world's major museums, universities, and research institutions.

Click image for larger view

• Insight™ software provides a visual environment for those who use images as research material. Insight helps the user access, view, and manage images and associated art-historical data. Images are in Kodak Photo CD and other formats. Major technologies used are C++, Photo CD, and imaging.

• The Luna Image Server works with Insight to provide image viewing and study capabilities to catalogs and collections management systems. Minimal changes are required to the existing system. This architecture has been installed with systems using DB2, Oracle (Multi MIMSY), Paradox, and FoxPro databases. Major technologies used are C, Dynamic Data Exchange, ODBC, Photo CD, and imaging.
• Standard Database Interface (SDI) provides an integrated data and imaging capability to databases. A visual front-end provides sophisticated point-and-click searching of the existing database, as well as integration of imaging functionality using the Luna Image Server and Insight. SDI has been deployed with DB2, Visual FoxPro, and SQL Server databases.

September 1993 - August 1998

MARCView is an easy-to-use program to view, search, and print bibliographic and authority files. (More information).

MARConvert handles special problems or unusual requirements in converting records into or out of MARC21, UNIMARC, and MARCXML bibliographic or authority formats. It will also convert MARC records from one character set to another. MARConvert is available only in custom versions, guaranteed to work with your specialized or non-standard files. (More information and example projects).

MARCView/Super provided an Internet/intranet solution. This product has been discontinued.

March 1993 - present