The possibility of being able to search the visual collections of Harvard's museums and libraries, find the information needed, and save it in one easily printed file all without leaving your desk seemed, until recently, fantasy.

Now it's possible.

Visual Information Access (VIA), a new catalog of visual materials owned, held, or licensed by Harvard and Radcliffe, is changing the way researchers access visual material and the way that curators and librarians make it accessible. The catalog, which allows users to browse or search by keyword, was introduced this spring and is now available on the Internet at http://via.harvard.edu:748/html/VIA.html.

"The timing was right the technology was there and we found a group of terrifically dedicated colleagues from across Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that shared a common vision for the future of access to their vast visual resources," notes Curator of the Visual Collections of the Fine Arts Library, Harvard College Library, Martha Mahard, "The support of the Harvard University Library, the Peabody, the Schlesinger, and the Harvard University Art Museums administrations made it possible for us to make this vision a reality and begin a true interdisciplinary, `cross-tub' collaboration. It's been a great adventure!"

VIA allows researchers to search one particular collection or to search for one subject in several of the University's repositories from one central location. The catalog was custom-designed primarily for cultural and fine arts collections, which cannot be adequately described in the University's HOLLIS cataloguing system. VIA allows for more complex, detailed descriptions: a typical record lists the title and type of work, a description of the item, where it is located, copyright information, and related items.

If a digital image exists for an object in a collection, its VIA listing may also include a thumbnail version of that image. By clicking on the thumbnail, the viewer can examine a full-screen version and even save a copy of it. While not all images in the collections are online at this time, more and more will be included as the system develops. Although security issues have so far prevented the inclusion of some copyrighted images, eventually they will be added to VIA.

The catalog interface, which looks much like a typical Internet search engine, was designed to be user-friendly. To perform a search, users type in a keyword and select the particular collection or collections they wish to search. As on a search engine, the number of results can be narrowed by adding additional keywords. Results of the search and sets of records can then be saved in an electronic file, sent by e-mail, or printed.

"We feel like it's extremely user-friendly," said Mackenzie Smith, library digital projects manager in the Office for Information Services (OIS). "It was conceived and developed by people who know what their research community wants in terms of capability and information."

VIA is also providing access to material that wasn't previously available. Before now, there was no way to locate all the works that were housed in all the individual collections. This is the first time that people are able to search across the University. In some cases, the visual images serve as a surrogate for the actual objects, which are too fragile for public access. Until now, curators of these materials simply had to restrict those holdings from public view. With VIA they have an alternative: full-screen digital images of the objects and related textual information provide a new means of access.

An updated version of the catalog will be released this fall. During the summer, system developers will incorporate feedback from users, and will add better image-management capability and more full-screen images of collected materials, as well as provide security for copyrighted images.

The first visual collections to go online with VIA include those of the Harvard College Fine Arts Library; the Design School's Loeb Library; Radcliffe's Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America; the Harvard University Art Museums, including the Fogg, Sackler, and Busch-Reisinger; and the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology.

The catalog marks the first step in Harvard's Library Digital Initiative (LDI), a University-wide effort to make collections available online and to link objects of related interest. The initiative will provide educators and researchers with ways to explore relationships between the diverse collections of Harvard's libraries, museums, and archives.

"The collaboration with the libraries on VIA has already brought major benefits to the museum community," said James Cuno, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director, Harvard University Art Museums. "VIA provides us an expanded context for sharing information about our collections. The ability to see descriptions of our holdings alongside records of related materials elsewhere in the University adds a whole new dimension to the opportunities for curators and other researchers across a multitude of academic disciplines."