The Manuscript, Archives & Rare Book Library (MARBL), now a part of our newly-formed LITS division, will be using LUNA to deliver images in a new high profile image collection this fall. A couple of years ago, Faculty Services contracted with LUNA Imaging to host Emory University Unique Image Collections at http://digitalgallery.emory.edu. The only customers at the time were the Art History Department and The Michael C. Carlos Museum. MARBL has already added a Historic Maps collection to LUNA and now the Robert Langmuir Collection will fully demonstrate the capabilities of this image management system.
The Robert Langmuir Collection is a rare collection of more than 10,000 photographs depicting African American life from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. You can read a press release about the collection from the MARBL website: http://marbl.library.emory.edu/robert-langmuir-african-american-photograph-collection
A general overview of the MARBL collections can be found at: http://marbl.library.emory.edu/collection-overview-1.
This project began when Elizabeth Russey Roke, Emory Digital Archivist, contacted Kathy Hayes (Academic Technology Services) and asked:
“As you know, we will start ingesting about 40,000 to 50,000 images from the Langmuir collection into LUNA soon [Ed. note – 10,000 of which have been approved so far for public viewing]. It occurred to us that we should check to see if Emory has enough space in our LUNA instance for this volume of data.”
According to LUNA, their software “makes it easy to organize, manage and deliver media and collections. Ours is the only solution available that combines both powerful delivery tools with robust content management tools. You don’t have to settle for one without the other.” The use of a third-party vendor for image management demonstrates the flexibility that can be achieved through partnerships of this kind.
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