Shared Shelf FAQs

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How do I determine my institution's Shared Shelf fees?
The Shared Shelf Institutional Classification Base Fee and the Service Fee are for access to and utilization of the Shared Shelf platform, and are invoiced on an annual basis. Your institution’s Shared Shelf classification will be the same as your ARTstor Digital Library classification. If you aren’t sure what your classification is, please contact us at sharedshelf@artstor.org. The Service Fee reflects the average number of assets your institution has in Shared Shelf over the course of a year. Your Institutional Classification Base Fee is invoiced at the beginning of the year and Service Fees are invoiced at the end of the year. Learn more about Fees.

Are Shared Shelf fees in addition to ARTstor Digital Library fees?
Yes. Shared Shelf represents a separate service from subscription to the ARTstor Digital Library and, as such, entails its own fees.

Are Shared Shelf fees one-time, or annual?
Shared Shelf fees are invoiced on an annual basis. The Institutional Classification Base Fee is invoiced at the beginning of the year and Service Fees are invoiced retroactively at the end of the year.

When will hosted collection migrations take place?
Once we receive a signed Shared Shelf service agreement from your institution, we will work with you to determine what kind of migration you require for your hosted collection. Your migration will then be scheduled determined to your needs and our migration queue.

How do Personal Collections relate to Shared Shelf?
Personal Collections, a feature in ARTstor that allows instructor-level users to upload images and data into ARTstor, is available to ARTstor Digital Library users. This is a separate feature from Shared Shelf. Learn more about Personal Collections.

When will "Open Shelf" be available?
We are still working with our partners and early subscribers to determine priorities among various ways to publish Shared Shelf content to the open web.  We are mostly likely to focus initially on enabling institutions to create a public webpage for a collection and to provide a means for institutions to export individual item level URLs to WorldCat.  As we continue to work with institutions, we intend to expand the ways that we enable the launching of local content to open sites.

Will shared cataloging be possible with Shared Shelf?
Yes, you will be able to share contributed records that you add to the name authority and work authority with your colleagues at your institution as well as with other institutions using Shared Shelf. This is a key feature of Shared Shelf, because it will allow you to draw upon, share, and contribute to shared resources based upon existing authorities.

Will I be charged fees for images I contribute to the ARTstor Digital Library?
Your institution will not be charged asset fees for content that you no longer manage within the system and that is determined to be a good fit for inclusion in the ARTstor Digital Library. For more information about contributing content, please contact us at collections@artstor.org.

Will Shared Shelf be adaptable to cataloging non-art materials?
Shared Shelf is intended to be a campus-wide platform for image management. We are developing cataloging templates that take advantage of existing data schemas for areas outside of cultural heritage, such as astronomy and biology. The Shared Shelf platform is customizable for cataloging any kind of content.

Will audio and video files be compatible with Shared Shelf?
Shared Shelf will initially work with still images, but we are exploring the extent to which it would be desirable for our users for the system to work with other file formats such as audio and video.

Who will administer Shared Shelf on a campus?
Each institution can decide the appropriate person or persons to administer Shared Shelf on campus. Since many institutions will have multiple projects in Shared Shelf, it is possible that there will be multiple people who have administrative privileges.

Can I upload data from my current cataloging system into Shared Shelf?
Currently, Shared Shelf accepts uploads of .xls and .xlsx files. We are also working on compatibility with XML files.

Can we get a report on which of our hosted images are currently being used in image groups?
We are working on creating reports that will give the administrator on your campus this information.

What will happen to our hosted collections if we decide not to subscribe to Shared Shelf?
Institutions that have participated in the Hosting Pilot Program that decide not to subscribe to Shared Shelf will be able to access existing hosted collections in ARTstor through December 2012 (though they would be static with no additional updates after 2010). At that point, institutions would have to become Shared Shelf subscribers if they wish to continue accessing their local collections via the ARTstor software environment.  This "sunset" window may need to be re-examined if changes in ARTstor’s technology architecture require rebuilding of collections that are currently served via the existing ARTstor platform; if such rebuilding is needed, we would only be able to rebuild collections for institutions that were able to support Shared Shelf as subscribers.

When will trials be available?
Trials of Shared Shelf will be available in fall 2011. Please contact Library Relations, 212-500-2437, for an online demonstration of the platform.

Can I choose where to publish the images I catalog in Shared Shelf? What if I only want to publish some of my images to my institutional hosted collection in ARTstor, and publish the rest elsewhere?
You will be able to determine the publishing targets for your content in Shared Shelf, and there will be standardized export formats (and APIs) for either exporting packages of Shared Shelf content for use in whatever environment you choose, or calls into the system for dynamic access. You do not have to publish all of your images to your institutional hosted collection, and in many cases, your preferred target may be some other software or system, either within the campus or in a external environment.

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