For this assignment I selected the New York metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) to locate a suitable piece of digital media. I selected an art museum since I feel like there is more to discuss about whether these sorts of media fulfill the purpose of art pieces compared to cultural artifacts. In an attempt to get multiple forms of media to examine I then selected the search criteria of musical instruments and began looking for suitable samples which offered both digital images and audio clips.
The Item I settled on is “The Francesca” violin created by Antonio Stradivari. The virtual media associated with this item include 4 photos, a 2:06 audio clip made using the violin and several other instruments made by Stradivari, a short blurb about Antonia Stradivari and a section about the artwork details which includes physical information, provenience of the item and its exhibition history within the museum.
Overall, I consider this information to be extremely effective at conveying information about the instrument, though I do feel like the photos could have included a scale measurement to get a better idea of the instrument’s size. In particular the choice to include an audio recording of the instrument being played did an incredible amount to improve my experience using the website to interact with the instrument, compared to simply seeing the images and reading about it.
In regards to preservation I feel the images were well handled with multiple High Quality JPEG files, which are available for download through the public domain, making it easy to legally store copies on external hard drives or for download by researchers. Unfortunately I could not identify the type of audio file included on the webpage or whether it was stored in a secondary form, but the fact that a digital recording of the instrument being played was included at all makes preserving that information much easier and with less risk to the instrument.
In general I felt like the met went to commendable efforts to provide and safeguard digital media information for this instrument, and my primary concern with maintaining and preserving the media file into the future would be that there is only one audio file recorded and I don’t know the status of any backups or whether it is possible to create additional audio files to showcase the instruments full range. My question for this assignment is as follows: To what extent should audio information be included in the digital media associated with artifacts, and what efforts should be taken to safeguard this information against misuse?
I believe having audio information included within a digital media associated with artifacts is a great concept – especially when providing verbal context to artifacts. Audio information also adds to the virtual online visitor experience. In order to safeguard information against misuse important information about artifacts (i.e. preservation methods, specific origin of artifacts, etc.) should be witheld from audio information.