Subject Access To Visual Resources Collections

Searching through a resource collection for a particular type of visual image yields little more than frustration if the user lacks the knowledge of the specialized concepts that are the key to the collection's system of classification. With Karen Markey's innovative approach to subject searching, however, users will be able to translate an inquiry for a particular type of visual image into the appropriate symbolic theme or concept and will easily access any type of visual resource collection.

Based on Erwin Panofsky's work on meaning in the visual arts and the author's study of users of iconographical research collections, this volume offers a step-by-step method of describing subject content in visual images. Markey's model will enable museums, libraries, and art galleries to upgrade their services significantly.

Review: ?This book offers a step-by-step method of describing the subject content of visual images and of incorporating those descriptions into a computer-produced thematic catalog that will enable untrained users to gain access to all types of visual resources collections.... Methodically and clearly organized, this work is an admirable piece of research and a significant contribution to the field of subject indexing.

The style is serviceable ... there is a bibliography, an index, and ample charts, tables, and examples. This volume should be useful to curators of visual resources collections, as well as to library scientists interested in computerized information retrieval.?-The Journal of Academic Librarianship