3.5 Word and image synchronized

Existing digital publications have failed to serve art history well. This is understandable: no other disciplineattaches the same value to the image—its quality and interactivity—or requires the tight interlocking of image and text. Most e-publications, both books and journals, are in pdf format,reflecting their origins in print. Under these conditions, image quality deteriorates, the page is static, and special viewing toolscan not be deployed. The clickable in-page images in some recent e-publications are an immense improvement. Clicking on thethumbnail image enlarges it and allows for zooming and panning, but the full-frame image on a white backdrop fills the entire screenand the text disappears.

The substitutional relation of word and image may suffice in some fields, but not in art history, where imagesare integral to the investigation, not purely demonstrative. Text directs your attention to the image, and the two interlock. On theprinted page, layout constraints often cause text and image to fall out of sync; reading involves a multifinger procedure to bookmarkscattered illustrations. This constraint need not exist online, where a simultaneous on-screen presence of text and image can bemaintained. The relationship of word and image might be rethought for the computer screen to take advantage of its horizontalorientation. Today, screen displays remain beholden to the printed page, leaving empty space on the margins of an on-screen text page.The width of the computer screen could be usefully harnessed to allow for split screens with adjacent but separately maneuverablepages of text and image.

The ARTstor offline viewer offers exemplary features that could be the basis for a parallel text-image display.A screen could be divided in two parts, a text window next to an image window equipped with ARTstor's array of viewer tools to zoomand pan, view QuickTime videos, and perhaps in the future 3-D models, animations and other simulations. This split-screenarrangement would allow the reader to read the text while moving the images backward and forward as warranted by the author'sargument and the reader's curiosity. An additional window might have thumbnail slides as a navigational aide through a largeillustration program. Tk3 Author software also offers flexible screen layouts and permits assemblage of multimedia. However, itspolytextuality—the mixing of multiple media—lacks the specific emphasis on high-quality images and image viewing tools thatdistinguish ARTstor and are demanded by art and architectural history.

ARTstor is likely to be vital in developing the full potential of electronic publishing in the arts. Althoughnot a publisher, ARTstor offers a sophisticated viewing tool and is the dominant provider of digital images. Its successful strategy ofeliminating redundancy by building a central image repository also pertains to electronic publishing where the high hurdles in arthistory have had the demonstrable effect of barring scholarly journals and publishers from entering the field, and where theformidable challenges and costs specific to art history are too great for underresourced journals and scholarly societies to meetindividually.