Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, professor of the history of art, has taught at Princeton University, Yale University, and the University of Maryland. She kindly agreed to reflect on our THATCamp questions.

1. What is your current involvement with “digital art history”? 

I let statistics gleaned from honorable databases guide me to art historical insights.  The profusion of art historical database material is a major innovation for which to be grateful.  I would like to see a site where privately created research databases could be brought together, enhanced, corrected, made public and shared.

2. What is one of the most pressing issues in the field of “digital art history” today? 

Curtailment of ideas and insights owing to less-than-universal open access to visual material for scholarly purposes is the biggest blight on the profession of art history.  The battle against using research material as a profit-making commodity should be ceaseless (and victorious)

3. Where do you see innovations happening?

Innovation is happening in the classroom where many new and wonderful technical elements are being manipulated for pedagogical purposes.  Since no one makes programs designed for scholarship and/or teaching, invention’s mother has created remarkable new types of interaction with students.  With any luck, these on-the-fly stimuli will ultimately change the way art history is written.