ARLIS/NA-VRA Summer Educational Institute (SEI)

The purpose of the Summer Educational Institute for Digital Stewardship of Visual Information is to provide information professionals with valuable training and education in the area of visual information and image management. Under the direction of the Executive Boards of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and the Visual Resources Association (VRA), the Implementation Team (IT) is charged as the management group for the Summer Educational Institute (SEI) providing or coordinating administration, local arrangements, registration, scheduling, fundraising, publicity, curriculum, instruction and teaching materials.

SEI Workshop

Leadership

Natasha Bishop, Senior Co-Chair (VRA), Cornell University

Kate Thornhill, Junior Co-Chair (ARLIS), University of Oregon

Meghan Rubenstein, Web Manager and Publicity Specialist, Colorado College

Abby Houston, Curriculum Specialist and Faculty Liaison (VRA), Berea College

Wen Nie Ng, Curriculum Specialist and Faculty Liaison (ARLIS), Virginia Tech

History

In 2002 an ARLIS/NA-VRA Joint Education Task Force (JETF) was formed and charged to develop an infrastructure and curriculum for a week-long summer institute of continuing education in image collection/visual resources management; to negotiate instructors and teaching materials for the institute; and to arrange its first venue and program schedule at Rice University (Houston, Texas) for early summer 2003. However, a decision was made in 2003 to move the inaugural SEI to Duke University, which would take place in the summer of 2004. One of the reasons was that the VRA conference had just been in Houston in 2003 and ARLIS' was going to be in Houston in 2005.

The first formal meeting of the JETF took place at the joint ARLIS/NA-VRA conference in St. Louis in 2002. Subsequent meetings occurred at VRA conferences in Houston (2003) and Portland (2004) and ARLIS/NA conferences in Baltimore (2003) and New York (2004). During the summer or fall of 2004 the JETF recommended it's dissolution and the creation of the Summer Educational Institute Implementation Team (SEI IT) to handle the planning of SEI 2005.