Kiosks will allow visitors to access collection details

By TRACEY D'ASTOLFO
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Butler Institute of American Art is preparing a system that will allow patrons to search for information on its artworks electronically.
The history and documentation of most works in the Butler's collection will be readily accessible to museum visitors via touch-screen kiosks in the galleries. The kiosks, funded by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, should be installed this spring.
Electronic archival specialist Pat McCormick, registrar Rebecca Davis and staff assistant Margo Jacobs began the huge and time-consuming task of updating the museum's database in April of last year, including photographing every piece of art in the Butler's permanent collection for the database.
"We took the permanent collection database and incorporated what was on there to the kiosks, which made the kiosk development a lot easier than starting from scratch," McCormick said.
Multiple search methods
The kiosks will be interactive, allowing museum visitors to choose from multiple search methods, such as searches by an artist's name or the title of a work of art. Searching by artist will produce a list of all of that artist's works in the Butler's collection.
Once the desired search is completed, the screen will then display a picture of the artwork, the name of the artist and his or her birth and death dates, the date the art was created, its medium, its size and how the Butler acquired the piece -- whether it was a museum purchase or a donation.
A further search of historical information provides a biography of the artist or donor; archival documents, such as letters from the artist to the Butler; and information on art loans -- to what museums it had been lent, how long each museum had it and the title of those exhibitions. Also available will be conservation history, including before and after photos, if the painting had ever been to the conservation lab.
Visitors can also search by historical movement, such as contemporary realism. A brief description of the movement will be displayed along with three examples of the movement. The screen will also display a list of all works of art in the Butler's collection that are considered to be part of this historical movement; visitors can select the work in which they are interested.
"Pretty much any information we have on a painting or an artist is going to be contained in there in some way," Jacobs said.
Dr. Louis Zona, director of the Butler, said the kiosks will be useful and interesting for everyone from a young child to an art scholar, who will be able to get in-depth information.