Grant Will Purchase Digital Art and Architecture Archive

Written by Julie Toland Barnett

The Helen Jones Foundation Inc. awarded a grant of $45,000 to the Texas Tech Architecture Library to purchase the Inter-American Institute digital image collection of architecture, art and culture of non-Western origin.

This international collection will assist the University Libraries in instruction, research and study of architecture, art, design, history, landscape architecture and archaeology for the Texas Tech community by improving the coverage of Asian, African and Mesoamerican subjects.

Images are an essential part of architecture and visual arts education, said Melanie Clark, architecture image librarian and grant recipient.

“Professional-quality image collections include coverage that is rarely found on the World Wide Web, such as extensive details, interiors not accessible to the general public, and photographs of archived items such as architectural drawings and other documents relevant to the study of architecture and culture,” she said. “This makes an extensive digital image collection paramount.”

In addition to architecture, the Inter-American Institute collection includes sculpture and other cultural artifacts, which would be broadly applicable to other departments at Texas Tech, Clark said, including the School of Art and the Departments of Design, Landscape Architecture, English, Philosophy and History.

Funds will be used to purchase a permanent license for the Inter-American Institute digital image archive, a collection of 13,000 high-quality digital images of the architecture and culture of Spain, Mexico, Northern Africa, Middle America and Turkey with upcoming additions from Asia and the Middle East. The new image collection should be available in January 2011.