VADS is to upgrade its online image archive after securing funding for a one year project from JISC - a joint committee of the UK further and higher education funding bodies.
VADS is based at the Farnham Campus of the University for the Creative Arts, where it has recently attained research centre status within the library. It was founded to provide services to the academic community 11 years ago, and since that time it has built an online collection of more than 100,000 images which are copyright cleared for teaching, learning, and research in the UK.
Some three hundred educational institutions and museums have contributed to the VADS collection since its inception, including UCA's own Textiles and Fine Art Departments and the Crafts Study Centre.
The JISC funding will allow VADS to enhance the online archive, improve image searching, undertake user and evaluation studies and to promote the archive's use in teaching, learning and research.
Rosemary Lynch, Head of Library and Learning Services at UCA, said: "This funding highlights the valuable contribution that VADS makes to the higher education community and to creative arts practitioners. It comes at an exciting time for VADS, which has recently become integrated into UCA as a research centre - the first to be based in the university library.
UCA has hosted VADS for 11 years and is delighted to support VADS' ambition to be a leading centre in the research and development of digital knowledge management in the creative arts."
The VADS image library can be viewed at www.vads.ac.uk
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