About
Regional Art and Artist Database
The goal of this site is to create a comprehensive inventory of art and artists hailing from, exhibiting in, or taking subject matter from within the Northern Lights Library Network’s region, which cover north-central, north-west, and west-central Minnesota.
The database is purposefully inclusive. Beyond just an awareness of one’s local sites and art communities, we hope to encourage increased visitation and experiential exposure to the art and increased patronage of these local artists.
Browsing Items and Collections
Along the main navigation menu, you’ll see options for browsing items and collections. This is a good way to get a very cursory glance at the kind of items included on the site.
When you select “Browse Items,” you can view the works’ titles, descriptions, tags, and main image. These are automatically listed in the order they were added to the site, with most recent first. If you click on the work’s title, you’ll be taken to the item’s page and its comprehensive Dublin Core metadata.
When you select “Browse Collections,” you can peruse groupings of items and artists, such as “Regional Ojibwe Art.”
Browsing with Tags
When you select the “Browse Items” tab from the menu, you’ll have two new tab options: “Browse All” and “Browse by Tag.” When you select the “Browse by Tag” option, you’ll be taken to a new page with a word cloud of tags, with larger words denoted higher-frequency tags. When you click on a tag, you’ll see all the items that have been marked with that tag.
Advanced Metadata Search
Under the search bar in the top right of the page, select “Advanced Search.” From here you can enter specific keywords, narrow your search by specific fields according to the Dublin Core options, search a range of ID#s assigned to the items, restrict your search to a certain collection, type, or feature-set.
Dublin Core Elements
Each item on the site has been catalogued with its particular metadata. Omeka (the host site) uses Dublin Core standards for classifying items, which means that the available fields are title, creator, subject, description, publisher, contributor, date, type, format, identifier, source, language, relation, coverage, and rights.
The items on this site don’t require all fields, so the following is an outline of the fields with catalogued information and a quick overview of what that element describes:
-title: the title of the artwork
-creator: artist or fabricator
-subject: a general overview of the artwork’s subject matter
-description: a brief narrative of the work or an artist’s statement
-date: the year the work was made/installed
-format: materials or medium
-identifier: the location of the museum where the work is/was held, the artist’s studio, or the work itself
-source: a webpage where more information relating to the artwork or artist can be found
Northern Lights Library Network
The Northern Lights Library Network is a network for coordinating services and sharing resources for a 23-county region in north-central, north-west, and west-central Minnesota. For more information on NLLN, visit our website nlln.org.