OhioPix is an image database created by the Ohio Historical Society's Archives/Library to provide online access to photographs, paintings, prints and objects from the Society's collections. The database is searchable by subject, title, photographer and dates. Staff has selected highlights from our photograph collections and created "galleries" to illustrate specific topics or themes.

Many of the images in OhioPix are available for research and commercial use. Before using any image in OhioPix, please read our copyright notice and contact the Archives/Library's audiovisual staff at audiovisuals@ohiohistory.org. Reproductions of images are also available, see the pricing guide for list of services and prices available.

Project description

Scope:
OhioPix is a product of the Ohio Historical Society's strategic planning process, Vision 2000: Creating a Future Worthy of our Past. Our image database directly answers the challenge to "use modern information technology to improve the way we provide information to and interact with our audiences" as stated in the Vision 2000 stage one plan.

OhioPix currently contains approximately 5561 digital images from our extensive visual collections. The goal of OhioPix is to continue adding digital images until there is a representative sample of all the Society's significant visual resources in the database.

Staff:
The Archives/Library's Manuscript and Audiovisuals Department undertook this project in January 2001. Staff involved include:

• Cynthia Ghering, Head of Manuscripts and Audiovisuals Department.
  
• Betsy Butler, Research Assistant
  
• Duryea Kemp, Photo-reproduction Technician
  
• Stefan Langer, Web Manager
  
• Elizabeth Nelson, Head of Online Access
  
• Lisa Wood, Audiovisual Archivist
  

Specifications:
Photographs were scanned using a Microtek ScanMaker 9600 flatbed scanner with Adobe Photoshop 6.0. or 7.0. All items were scanned at 400 dpi. Tiffs were created for all images. Equilibrium's DeBabelizer Pro 4.5 or 5.0 was then used to generate derivative gifs and jpegs for each image. An Access database holds descriptive information about the items in the digital collection along with the path to the digital image of the item. The web interface and search parameters for the database were constructed using ColdFusion.

Metadata:
Metadata is a summary of information about the form and content of a resource. It may describe such things as the photographer of an image or the date of a painting that help with classification and retrieval. Metadata is created to make searching easier.

The images in OhioPix are indexed according to the Dublin Core metadata schema. Several of the data elements were changed slightly to reflect the unique nature of our collections and the purposes of OhioPix. Metadata fields include:

• Title
• Description
• Collection Name, Number
• Item Location
• Creator, Creator Role
• Coverage Temporal (Date)
• Coverage Spatial (Location)
• Media Process, Media Format
• Copyright
• Condition
• Digital Creation Date
• Library of Congress Subjects

Web Interface:
The images in OhioPix are accessible online through three options. Images are arranged in four loose categories; People, Places, Events and Objects. These categories are browseable in alphabetical order. Selected images have been highlighted in viewable "galleries" and arranged by topic or theme. All images in OhioPix are searchable through basic and advanced search features. For more information on OhioPix's search capabilities, please review our Help section.