The AKALA digital collection currently includes 78 artworks by Uzo Egonu and Victor Ekpuk.  Artworks by Chika Okeke-Agulu, Ada Udechukwu, and Obiora Udechukwu will be added next.  Images can be viewed in two display formats: CONTENTdm and ARTstor (subscription only).

Click below to view the collection in ContentDM.

AKALA Digital Image Collection

Once you’re in the collection, you can click on thumbnails to view larger image files and metadata (cataloging information).

CONTENTdm collections can also be searched through Encore, SLU library’s keyword search and discovery tool.

What’s next?

• We plan to load image files and metadata into ARTstor to compare and contrast the quality of image display and overall user experience.
• We will also test the collection in Flickr, a presentation format used by the Library of Congress and others.

The four digital display formats listed above — ContentDM, Encore, ARTstor, and Flickr — all present information (visual and textual) that varies greatly in terms of quality and functionality.  It gets technical fairly quickly.  Please contact us if you’d like to learn more.

From the Gallery’s perspective, ContentDM seems well suited to present items from library special collections, archives, and historical societies, i.e., letters, manuscripts, small photographs, and postcards.  Image display for anything over 8 ½ x 11 inches is fairly poor.  ARTstor far surpasses ContentDM in terms of image display, but is only available to libraries by subscription.

Encore is a search and discovery tool that includes all of the SLU library’s books, journals, special collections, and archives, as well as image collections in the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery, and music and video recordings.  An Encore search for “West African textiles” points to 70 items in the Christopher D. Roy ’69 collection, for example.  Encore is relatively new at SLU and, as to be expected, there are glitches with certain links and image displays.  Let us know if you find one so we can have it fixed.

At some point in the near future, we may try Drupal, a content management system used by most other departments and programs at SLU.