Image Use and Image Users
In Spring 2010, I conducted a survey that addressed the image needs of three humanities departments at Indiana University. I limited the results to graduate students only by sending the survey recruitment email to graduate listservs. I surveyed Art History, English, and Communication and Culture, asking them questions that assessed what their image needs were, how familiar they were with image retrieval tasks, what resources they normally used for image retrieval, and whether they had had instruction in image retrieval. You can look at the survey here. Here are the questions with responses in total, and then broken down by department.
The survey was written on the website Survey Monkey. The survey, recruitment email, and research description was submitted to the Institutional Review Board in January, 2010, and approved in February, 2010. The recruitment email including the link to the survey was sent out to the graduate student listservs on February 19th, and remained open for five weeks. The data was then gathered and analyzed, first totaling the responses of all participants, and then separated into answers particular to the user’s department. A total of 125 participants took the survey, forty-six from English (out of 228 total enrolled graduate students in the department), thirty-seven from Communication and Culture (out of ninety-two total enrolled), and forty-two from Art History (out of sixty-two total enrolled).
For the following graphs, I have provided column charts and a data table below for actual numbers of each question. Please read ENG as English, C&C as Communication and Culture, and A H as Art History.
The survey was written on the website Survey Monkey. The survey, recruitment email, and research description was submitted to the Institutional Review Board in January, 2010, and approved in February, 2010. The recruitment email including the link to the survey was sent out to the graduate student listservs on February 19th, and remained open for five weeks. The data was then gathered and analyzed, first totaling the responses of all participants, and then separated into answers particular to the user’s department. A total of 125 participants took the survey, forty-six from English (out of 228 total enrolled graduate students in the department), thirty-seven from Communication and Culture (out of ninety-two total enrolled), and forty-two from Art History (out of sixty-two total enrolled).
For the following graphs, I have provided column charts and a data table below for actual numbers of each question. Please read ENG as English, C&C as Communication and Culture, and A H as Art History.
Question 1: What is your department?
Question 2: Do you use images for teaching, presenting, or for evidence in research papers?
Question 3: What platforms have you used to procure images for your schoolwork? Check all that apply:
Question 4: How would you rate your success at finding the image you wanted at these sites?
Question 5: When you try to find images, are you looking for a specific image (such as a specific artwork) or a generalized depiction or concept?
Question 6: Do you give up trying to find the right image because you can't find it?
Question 7: Is resolution/clarity important to you in your field?
Question 8: Have you had instruction from the library or from your professors in available image resources and how to use these resources?
Question 9: If you answered yes, did you find this instruction helpful?
Question 10: Do you have any other comments about your experiences with image searching and retrieval that you would like to share?
Open-ended responses from the English department respondents:
“I have consulted the librarians in the IU art library before for help in tracking down a particularly difficult painting to find, and they were able to assist me in locating the painting by putting me in contact with a historical society.”
“I frequently can't find a particular image b/c I recall certain aspects of it (so I am looking for something specific), but I don't know any identifying information, so I end up searching for words that describe the image, rather than artist, source, title, etc. Can we get a subscription to Google MindReader, please?”
From Communication and Culture respondents:
“A workshop in issues related to searching, retrieval, and use of images would be very useful.”
“I am always concerned when using Google or some other online search engine that I'll just come up with the same images a thousand other people would use, and I would like to find a better source for more unique images.”
From Art History respondents:
“some sites that we were told about [during image instruction] are so complicated that i don't even begin the search. if artstor and dido don't have the image, a book search, or i can't find an image from a repository then i move on. i only use google image if i'm desperate and just need a quick reference in my work. i rarely use the image as part of the presentation or a key image in it.”
“Regarding question no. 6, "Do you give up trying to find the right image because you can't find it?" i responded that I rarely give up trying to find the image I need, but I often have to settle for a low-quality image that's not exactly what I was looking for. Even though I usually find the image I'm looking for, sometimes I have to settle for a poor quality scan from a journal or a b/w image, which can be problematic. All in all, I can usually find the images I need, but these are not always GOOD images.”
“I have consulted the librarians in the IU art library before for help in tracking down a particularly difficult painting to find, and they were able to assist me in locating the painting by putting me in contact with a historical society.”
“I frequently can't find a particular image b/c I recall certain aspects of it (so I am looking for something specific), but I don't know any identifying information, so I end up searching for words that describe the image, rather than artist, source, title, etc. Can we get a subscription to Google MindReader, please?”
From Communication and Culture respondents:
“A workshop in issues related to searching, retrieval, and use of images would be very useful.”
“I am always concerned when using Google or some other online search engine that I'll just come up with the same images a thousand other people would use, and I would like to find a better source for more unique images.”
From Art History respondents:
“some sites that we were told about [during image instruction] are so complicated that i don't even begin the search. if artstor and dido don't have the image, a book search, or i can't find an image from a repository then i move on. i only use google image if i'm desperate and just need a quick reference in my work. i rarely use the image as part of the presentation or a key image in it.”
“Regarding question no. 6, "Do you give up trying to find the right image because you can't find it?" i responded that I rarely give up trying to find the image I need, but I often have to settle for a low-quality image that's not exactly what I was looking for. Even though I usually find the image I'm looking for, sometimes I have to settle for a poor quality scan from a journal or a b/w image, which can be problematic. All in all, I can usually find the images I need, but these are not always GOOD images.”