It's exam time. Students are cramming for finals which, in the Art and Architecture programs, is a contact sport. Instructors in the Art and Architecture departments rely heavily on 35 mm slides in their courses to exemplify concepts in action. Professor Meredith Clausen showcased numerous such slides, taken during her own course of study, to provide the visual element so crucial to the content of the Architectural History and American Architecture courses she teaches. Like other instructors in her department, she routinely placed the lecture slides in plastic sleeves after class and posted them in the hallway over a light board for students to review.
Slides typically remain posted in the hallway for a day or two after the lecture.
Around exam time, you'd see dozens students in the hallway, clawing to see the slides. In 1995, one of my graduate students suggested I put my images on the Web. Mike Furr, Clausen's graduate student, was to become instrumental in the development and maintenance of the image archive. A Growing Collection Professor Clausen set out on a trip to Europe in the summer of 1996 to augment her personal collection of photographs of salient buildings across the continent. A visiting professorship in Tokyo in late 1996 provided Clausen with another opportunity to gather images.