IDOL is the New York School of Interior Design's image database and is a tool for both teaching and study.  This page is designed to introduce IDOL to faculty and to provide them with a brief guide in how to use the system.  The library staff is here to address specific needs and to provide hands-on training.

Faculty may use IDOL on campus or may download the software and use it at home to prepare lectures and presentations.  To download Luna Imaging's Insight "JVA Client" software (necessary for producing IDOL presentations), go to the IDOL webpage and follow the directions there:

IDOL

After downloading the software, you must get a username and password from the library staff.  You are then able to search the database, group and manipulate images and build presentation and study pages for classroom use and web posting.  Classroom presentations can automatically be exported to Microsoft PowerPoint presentations or HTML web presentations.

Using and Creating Insight Personal Collections

Faculty may create their own collections, uploading their own images and providing their own cataloging data.  Click here for instructions.

Sample Presentation and Review Page

The following link leads to a sample presentation of the history of the Dome and Portico motif in European Architecture generated in IDOL.  The presentation was exported to HTML and placed on our server.  Faculty will typically export to PowerPoint.

Sample Presentation

If this presentation were used in the classroom, a faculty member may wish to create a study page for students.  This too can be generated using IDOL.  The following link takes you to a hypothetical study page which would come from the above presentation:

Sample Review Page

Making Contributions to the IDOL Database

There are two ways for faculty to contribute to IDOL:

1.) Insight Personal Collections: The Luna Insight software IDOL runs on allows for faculty to create their collections of images and data.  These collections can be searched independently or concurrently with the IDOL Teaching Collection and IDOL public collection.  Separate instructions for using Insight Personal Collections can be accessed by clicking here:
Insight Personal Collections.

2.) Contributing to the IDOL Teaching Collection: Faculty members wishing to contribute images to the database should discuss this with the Dean and Library Director.  After a time table for processing images and cataloging them is established, images can be submitted in the form of slides, prints, transparencies or digital images.  Digital master images must be either submitted to the library by faculty or be made by the library from images submitted by faculty.  For technical specifications for digital master images, please refer to the guidelines on the Digital Master Images Page.  Cataloging of images proceeds much more rapidly if faculty provide basic information about the images submitted.  This will include the title, location, creator, nationality and date of the work represented.  Any special vocabulary required in the description should also be noted.

Posting Review Pages in Course Image Reserves on the Web

Faculty members wishing to post review pages on the web should make a group of the images they wish to post in Insight.  Next they should email the library director the name of the saved group.  The director will generate the thumbnails and place them on the intranet server, which can be accessed remotely by anyone with a NYSID ID and Password.  The library will create a webpage for the individual course with links to the review pages.  The course image reserve pages can be accessed from the NYSID Portal homepage or the library homepage.