Abstract (på engelska)

“Pictures, illustrations or visual data. Visual culture material in a text-biased information infrastructure”
This study investigates how the information infrastructure of a library steers not only the accessibility and retrievability of the visual material it preserves but, on a more profound level, how images are understood as sources of knowledge. Using the National Library of Sweden as a case it outlines three
different ways that images are conceptualized: as pictures, illustrations and visual data. Through close analysis of four very common types of visual  material it reveals the effects of the misalignment to the library’s practices and systems for categorization, cataloguing and dissemination. As this study  shows, metadata standards and thesauruses not only steer how visual material is made accessible in this cultural heritage institution. The dominance of text in this information infrastructure is very deeply rooted in both analogue and  digital systems.

Om Anna Näslund Dahlgren

Anna Näslund Dahlgren är professor i konstvetenskap vid Institutionen för kultur och estetik. Hon forskar på fotografi, visuell kultur, bildstudier, arkiv och digitaliseringsfrågor.

Anna Näslund Dahlgrens forskning