Insight
The production process that Insight established enabled core digital content to be created and fed into a range of services to be developed and improved over time.
Tate aims to continue development of a number of distinct delivery systems with content and interfaces focused on the needs of specific categories of audience. Gallery visitors requiring orientation information, for example, need a very different type of digital service from schoolchildren, researchers or indeed Tate staff.
All importantly however, a major part of these services are already being delivered through the website, to ensure access regardless of person or place.
Improved services
Insight initially provided the opportunity to make the website far more image-, rather than text-orientated, including the ability to browse works visually by thumbnail image. We are also offering far more intuitive tools for searching the Collection, minimising the need for typing into boxes by providing browsable indexes and pick-lists, key examples being the subject search tool and Turner geographic search and type of work area. Another important aim is to encourage interesting chance discovery through cross-referencing index links, therefore preventing a 'dead-end' being reached at individual work level.
A major step forward was the addition of a new Turner Collection area. This includes more than 30,000 works comprising the Turner Bequest, enabling the first complete presentation since the full printed catalogue was published back in 1909, complemented by central online access for the first time to works by Turner Worldwide from a range of partner collections
Insight also started to move beyond Tate's main Collection to delve into its Archive, offering for the first time an online Archive Showcase and Journeys based around three themes.
We have also introduced a number of improvements to navigating and searching the collection to enable this greatly extended Collections area to be used. Some of these established features are:
- Restructured navigation paths, with a range of new menu choices and an all-important tool for saving your own 'selections' from the Collection
- Improved search facilities, with many more options and the ability to retain your search results so that they can be further refined
- Image viewing tools, with the ability to view related images of a given work and a lightbox to compare different works, as well as a sketchbook viewer and enhanced image viewer for the Turner Bequest.
- Additional information about the works and artists in the Collection through the text scanning project.
- Enhanced accessibility of information about the Collection through the Glossary, which provides definitions of a wide variety of art terminology.
New images generated through Insight already appear on the website almost immediately. There are currently three key systems involved in the feed of information to the site, all of which have an Oracle database at their heart. The Collections Management System (CMS) and the Image Management System (IMS) are primary repositories for collection and surrogate object information respectively, whereas the Collections Information Service (CIS) provides a copy platform for publishing on the web.
We continue to pilot a number of special imaging treatments, moving beyond two-dimensional static imaging to improve representation of sculptural, video and installation works.