S. Worthen | Weblog

The capability is out there, but as you say, most people don't bother--and if the university won't invest in a decent digital projector, no matter how hard the scholar tries, their presentation won't be up to snuff visually. I have found a few museum sites (I think the National Gallery is one, but I'm blanking--maybe it was the Rijksmuseum) who present a few of their works in absolutely incredible resolution, to the point that you can focus in on individual brushstrokes in certain images. Still, the cost and space for those images really is prohibitive for most collections--not that all collections produce good slides of their work either.

I would sincerely love for powerpoint presentations to be as effective as mundane slide projector ones, because the flexibility and relative ease are so great, but at this point I refuse to sacrifice image quality for that ease of use (and at UT it wasn't so easy--I won't tell you the number of times a fellow student and I had to show the same students in our class how to use the computer for presentations. Two weeks before class ended one finally figured it out on her own...). Once art historians are ready to learn how to use the technology properly AND the technology is up to snuff, then I'll completely back digital presentations!

And I drool after digital SLRs too...