A trio of articles in the current issue of UVA Arts magazine features Library collaborations on several academic projects.
“Capturing a Cultural Heritage in 3D” follows Library Information Visualization Specialists Will Rourk and Arin Bennett, and Shayne Brandon and Lauren Massari of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH), as they send up 4K cameras mounted on quadcopters to capture 3D images of the McCormick Observatory with photogrammetry—using the 2D photos to capture measured data that will become part of the record of the UVA’s World Heritage site. “Perhaps the most cutting edge thing here is that a LIBRARY is doing this,” Rourk says. “I can’t think of another library in the world that is doing this kind of data collection.”
The article “Exploring New Dimensions with Art History & Engineering” highlights Rourk’s involvement with a student project for Art professor Tyler Jo Smith’s popular course on the Parthenon, to print 3D replicas of ancient vessels on display in the Fralin Art Museum that would otherwise be impossible to touch, so that students can have the tactile experience of knowing what it was like to handle them and even drink from them.
And “Banned Sounds: Kyle Chattleton’s Making Noise Project” examines graduate student Kyle Chattleton’s project on the history of Banned Sounds, presented by the Music Library to coincide with Banned Books Week. The project demonstrates how “cultural silencing” may be as harmful as banning the written word.