For Immediate Release
Tiltfactor is proud to announce the addition of 4,000 new images from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library to the Metadata Games platform. Metadata Games is a digital gaming platform for gathering useful descriptive data on photo, audio, and moving image artifacts. Through Metadata Games, players contribute valuable information to collections and further enable archivists, librarians, data scientists, and others, to gather and analyze information for archives in powerful and innovative ways. Clark Library joins a growing list of Metadata Games content partners, which currently includes the Boston Public Library, Open Park Networks, and Dartmouth College, among others.
Clark Library’s 4,000 images come from the David A. Hanson Collection, which documents the history of photomechanical reproduction, the process by which photography is used to make plates for printwork. Photomechanical prints were a popular visual media form in the pre-film era. The collection traces the history of this process from its introduction in 1826, through the perfection of three-color printing at the beginning of the twentieth century.
One of the images from the Hanson Collection recently added to the Metadata Games platform. Image Courtesy of Clark Library.
The Hanson Collection encompasses virtually all categories of photographically-illustrated books, reports, accounts, treatises, catalogues, pamphlets, and ephemera. While the subject matter is particularly rich in American material, there are also numerous European examples, including Blanquart-Evrard’s monumental 1870 survey of photography and photomechanical illustration, as well as Simoneau and Toovey in Spa et ses environs 1863 photolithographs.
“The Clark Library’s collection of photomechanical photography represents a unique and exciting addition to the Metadata Games platform,” says Sukie Punjasthitkul, project manager and designer at Tiltfactor.
“We hope that by increasing the public’s access to the Hanson collection, we will enable a vast array of players to explore the history of photography and to contribute new knowledge that increases the collection’s accessibility and searchability.”
Users can now tag these images –and thousands more– by playing the full suite of games available at http://metadatagames.org.
About the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library
Established in 1962, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library (http://www.clarkart.edu) has become one of the major art reference and research libraries in the United States, known for its focus on post-medieval European and American art. Founded on the libraries of the former firm of Duveen Brothers (New York) and of the late Dutch art historian W. R. Juynboll, the Clark also holds important collections of books on the decorative arts, the Robert Sterling Clark and the Julius S. Held collections of rare books, and a collection of twentieth-century artists’ books.
About Metadata Games
The Metadata Games (http://www.metadatagames.org) platform includes a suite of games that cater to a variety of player interests and are available on web browser, iOS, and Android devices. Metadata Games is free and open source software (FOSS) developed by Tiltfactor at Dartmouth College, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). Institutions interested in becoming a Metadata Games content partner are encouraged to contact Tiltfactor.
More information on the project can be found on the official Metadata Games website at http://www.metadatagames.org.
About Tiltfactor
Tiltfactor Laboratory (https://tiltfactor.org) is a design studio dedicated to understanding how games can be used to generate new knowledge. Tiltfactor designs, studies, and launches games, across a variety of platforms, that use core psychological principles and strategies to promote learning and impact players’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Founded and led by Dr. Mary Flanagan, Tiltfactor uses its unique design methodology, Critical Play, to incorporate fundamental human values and psychological principles to promote pro-social values such as cooperation, perspective taking, empathy, and civic engagement.
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