Among Friends

"Luna Insight" is transforming the way faculty and students use images in scholarly research and presentations. The Library purchased Luna Insight with assistance from the President's Office. This powerful software allows individuals to examine a database of high-resolution digital images of works of art and access extensive catalog data about the images. Among the software's many features is an ability to manipulate and relate images to be incorporated into faculty lectures and student presentations.

"The impact of this service cannot be underestimated," says Patrick Yott, Digital Initiatives Librarian. "Before we had the technology from Luna, if a professor wanted to use images in a lecture, he or she would have to go to the Art Slide Library, request slides and use a slide projector. Now, that same professor can incorporate the images into a digital presentation or a website, work from home or at the office, 24 hours a day."

Luna Insight makes it easier than ever to build comprehensive digital image collections by offering state-of-the-art image management software. Through this new service, the Library will be able to digitize its own image collections and incorporate them into the software, share content with other institutions that use Luna Insight, subscribe to digital image collections through a variety of Luna's content partners, or license digital images from vendors. In addition to images managed by the Library, it will be possible for individual faculty members to use this software to manage and utilize their personal image collections.

Three image collections are available now, and the Library will soon begin to add content for support of spring semester courses. Brown is digitizing part of its image collection and making it available through Luna Insight. In addition, the service will allow Brown users to access thousands of images through sharing arrangements with museums, universities and other private entities.

To take advantage of Luna Insight's full functionality, the user must download a java client. The content of an Insight collection also can be viewed in a web browser. If you would like to test-drive Luna Insight you can access the web browser or download the java client at: http://dl.lib.brown.edu/luna/index.html.

For more information about Luna Insight, please contact Patrick Yott at Patrick_Yott@brown.edu or Norine Duncan at Norine_Duncan@brown.edu.