2025 – ARLIS/NA Multimedia & Technology Reviews

We’re pleased to announce the release of the October 2025 issue of Multimedia & Technology Reviews.

This issue explores the evolving role of AI tools in art librarianship and art history, highlighting innovative applications and critical perspectives from professionals in the field. From AI-driven authentication of artworks and automated transcription of historical documents to intelligent research assistants and citation analysis tools, our reviewers delve into the transformative potential of AI in visual culture and information practices.

We invite you to explore the current reviews by following the DOI links provided and join the conversation on how technology continues to shape the future of art and cultural heritage.

You can also browse the full archive of our reviews on the ARLIS/NA Commons CORE Repository.

Art Recognition

Reviewed by: Jack Mulvaney

Art Recognition is an AI driven solution for appraising the authenticity of artworks to an industry standard. Responding to the proliferation of forged assets, art experts have become adept with techniques that assess an artwork from a position of proximity, from x-ray analysis to the ability of a trained human eye to determine inconsistency. Art Recognition’s website offers consistent artwork appraisal and analysis as a guarantee, via the convenience of only needing to submit a digital image, with certifiable results delivered within as little as 7 days.
See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/xdqp1-wsg49

EBSCO’s AI Insights and Natural Language Search (NLS)

Reviewed by: Jung Soo Bae

As academic research continues to evolve in the age of artificial intelligence, new tools are emerging to support more efficient and intuitive information discovery. ‘AI Insights‘ and ‘Natural Language Search (NLS)‘ are two AI-enhanced features introduced on EBSCO’s platforms to streamline the research process and improve the overall user experience. Both are configurable, add-on features available to subscribers of EBSCO Discovery Service and EBSCOhost databases. This review evaluates the effectiveness of these tools in real-world research contexts, focusing on their accuracy, usability, and transparency. To provide practical insights, test searches were conducted in EBSCOhost subscription databases such as Art & Architecture Source, using sample research questions drawn from actual reference interactions.
See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/67bn1-hg972

JSTOR AI Research Tool

Reviewed by: Roberto Vargas

First released in August of 2023, Ithaka’s AI Research Tool on the JSTOR platform is the vendor’s first implementation of a Large Language Models (LLM) on its collections. As of the writing of this review, the tool works with articles, book chapters, and research reports. This review of the tool will consider its functionality, the way it delivers content, its purpose, and the documentation Ithaka provides to help people utilize this tool.
See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/qgvd1-6at58

OpenAI Whisper: Automatic Speech Recognition

Reviewed by: Hayley Curtis

OpenAI’s Whisper is a free, open-source speech recognition model that automatically generates captions and transcripts for audio and video files. Whisper is publicly available to download and use from GitHub, so once downloaded, it can be run locally with command line prompts or in scripting languages like Python. Whisper provides a range of different processing models with varying levels of speed, accuracy, and required processing power from hardware.
See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/kb2fq-wew88

ProQuest Research Assistant

Reviewed by: Jenna Rinalducci

The ProQuest Research Assistant offers a suite of tools that attempt to streamline the research process. These tools are intended to help with search strategy and document analysis. ProQuest launched a beta version in ProQuest One Literature in 2024 and is now available in ProQuest Central as of early 2025.
See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/x18cz-fev62

Scite

Reviewed by: Kimberlie Sullivan

Scite is a citation analysis and discovery tool that seeks to improve the transparency, reliability, and interpretability of research, developing a system that not only evaluates the quantity but also synthesizes the impact of citations, setting it apart from legacy citation databases such as Scopus and Web of Science. The platform’s distinguishing feature is its “Smart Citations” function, which adds context to scholarly references. Instead of simply indicating that an article has been cited, Scite categorizes the citation as supporting, mentioning, or contrasting. The system draws on the surrounding text of each citation—usually the preceding, current, and following sentences—to show whether a work is affirmed, critiqued, or cited neutrally. This added layer of context helps users quickly assess an article’s role within the scholarly conversation, making it easier to identify influential studies, trace debates, and evaluate the credibility of cited claims.
See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/nqakk-e4r26

The Living Museum

Reviewed by: Liang-Chun Wu

The Living Museum is an experimental user interface designed to engage museum visitors and people at home with a selection of 1.2 million artifacts from the British Museum’s digital collections in an interactive format. This independent project is not affiliated with the British Museum. Its infinite canvas interface centers on two features: a natural language conversational chatbot and a curating function. By reorganizing existing information into a conversational format, the interface offers an accessible and engaging entry point into the collections, encouraging audiences to explore objects in a more dynamic and proactive way. Positioned as an experimental initiative, it focuses on broad public engagement rather than providing original scholarly arguments or aiming for formal academic recognition.
See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/kg9ah-k3835

Transkribus

Reviewed by: Hannah L. Jacobs

Transkribus is a web-based platform supporting transcription of historical documents for researchers, students, and communities. The platform is part of a suite of tools developed by read-coop to support the digitization workflow from scanning through to transcription and sharing. Trankribus’ automated transcription, with manual editing abilities, handles both handwritten and printed documents through processes known as handwritten text recognition (HTR) and optical character recognition (OCR). To support a range of mostly Western languages, scripts, and penmanship styles, Trankribus offers free and paid models and enables its users to train their own custom models. This last feature sets it apart from other historically-oriented HTR and OCR tools. An API is available for developers wanting to integrate Transkribus into their own environments.
See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/241k0-m4g28

We’re pleased to announce the release of the June 2025 issue of Multimedia & Technology Reviews (MTR), now available online.

This issue explores the timely and resonant theme of Preserving Cultural Heritage, a topic MTR has addressed in depth across previous issues. We invite you to explore the current reviews by following the links in the images below or by using the DOI link provided.

You can also browse the full archive of our reviews on the ARLIS/NA Commons CORE Repository.

As part of this theme, we’re highlighting a few past reviews that remain especially relevant. Here are some honorable mentions we encourage you to revisit:

Digital Benin
Mapping Philippine Material Culture
Missouri Remembers, Artists in Missouri through 1951
¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now
Visualizing the Virus

Archive of Destruction

Reviewed by: Bridget O’Keefe

The Archive of Destruction is an idiosyncratic digital repository that presents histories of public art and narratives around the concept of destruction. The creators characterize the resource as a global collection of modern and contemporary artwork, showcasing narratives of ‘vulnerability, interference, rage, fear, boredom, and love. See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/0x8h0-gs125

Cultural gems

Reviewed by: Campbell Garland

Begun in 2018, Cultural gems functions as a map application mapping out monuments, historical sites, and cultural institutions within the European Union. This site is run by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, an organization focused on promoting scientific research and collaboration. See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/bgj5v-ee815

Cultures in Crisis

Reviewed by: Carol Ng-He

Culture in Crisis is a free digital portal developed by the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) that records heritage protection projects from around the world. Launched in December 2019, the portal is considered to be the world’s largest and most accessible database on the subject.See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/2b0es-z5879

Digital Transgender Archive

Reviewed by: Leo Krakowsky

The Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is a key resource for primary research in queer and trans studies. The scope of its content and usage is timely and important in the current political climate, with applicability to a variety of library patrons. The DTA’s interface is clean and easy to understand, with impressive functionalities for search. Whether the user has an extensive background in transgender studies and topics, or is just beginning to familiarize themselves with this field, this resource’s content is offered in a clear and findable format. Particularly, the glossaries and lesson-planning guides are informative and helpful. See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/p5bcv-hxm16

dPlan|ArtsReady

Reviewed by: Carrie B. Evans

dPlan|ArtsReady is an emergency preparedness tool designed to help arts and cultural heritage organizations assess their disaster response plans, identify areas for improvement, retrieve important documents, and access expert resources. The platform can serve a range of organizations and is available in free or paid versions. See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/9vhvc-wsf26

Lost Art Database

Reviewed by: Stephanie Morgan

The Lost Art Database, developed by the German Lost Art Foundation, is a publicly accessible digital platform dedicated to documenting cultural property that was expropriated due to Nazi persecution between 1933 and 1945, or displaced as a result of World War II. The site contains thousands of entries, divided into Search Requests for missing cultural assets and Found-Object Reports for those that may have problematic provenance. The resource serves as a tool for restitution efforts and provenance research. It is designed to benefit scholars, institutions, and individuals seeking to trace displaced objects or claim lost heritage. See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/g1542-btv17

Museum of Looted Antiquities

Reviewed by: Samie Konet

The Museum of Looted Antiquities (MoLA) is a virtual gallery dedicated to the intricacies of tracing the smuggling, looting, purchase, and eventual return of antiquities repatriated since 1950. With contributions from community members–academics, lawyers, museum professionals–MoLA presents a comprehensive collection of trafficked antiquities with over 100 publicly available entries. Created to consolidate documentation tracing an artifact’s journey from its looting to eventual repatriation, MoLA aspires to preserve all records of ownership and exchange of an object for future research. See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/87qxg-82r44

NuevaYorkinos

Reviewed by: Laura Michael

A crowd-sourced digital archival initiative and multimedia project, NuevaYorkinos depicts everyday histories through photographs of Caribbean and Latino people living in all five boroughs of New York. The resource consists of community submissions, and each photograph is often accompanied by a written story or memory from its owner. The purpose of this digital archive is to visually document the quotidian lives of Latinos in NYC through an overall ethos of community history and storytelling. NuevaYorkinos has a wide scope, inviting submissions of photos and videos dated before 2010 from anyone of Caribbean or Latino descent. On its website, the photographic archive is organized by borough. With over 1,000 entries, most contributions are concentrated in Manhattan, and are mainly from the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. Founded by Djali Brown-Cepeda and Ricardo Castañeda, this multimedia project also includes virtual exhibitions, a free educational journal called Rooted, and in-person events. See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/em8xc-nvb02

Queer Zine Archive Project

Reivewed by: Alex Austin

The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) is an online blog and archive that contains fully digitized and browsable zines about queer subjects, available free to the public. Behind the digitized collection lives a physical archive in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, though the website serves as the primary mode of access. QZAP describes their intended audience as, “other queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest [in] DIY publishing and underground queer communities.”
See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/83bj5-6ks19

Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online

Reviewed by: Ruth Thomas

In February of 2022, Russian forces invaded eastern Ukraine. Less than two weeks later, an initiative emerged on the internet, founded by digital historians, librarians, and archivists to protect culturally significant materials from Ukraine from being lost in the conflict: Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO). With over 1,500 international volunteers contributing over 50TB of data, SUCHO aims to preserve digital and digitized records from Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions at risk of destruction due to war. With implications for those concerned with digital preservation, cultural memory, and post-custodial models of stewardship, SUCHO is a striking example of a responsive, community-driven archival initiative. See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/xtg1e-ekq04

Sudan Memory

Reviewed by: Reinhardt Schuhmann

The Sudan Memory project is a digital collection that preserves and promotes cultural materials from and about Sudan. Begun in 2018, it’s a collaboration between Sudanese and international partners, including Sudaak, the National Records Office of Sudan, and King’s College London. Materials are sourced from public and private collections, many at risk of being lost due to the ongoing Sudanese civil war. Collections come from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, The National Records Office of Sudan, The Sudan Archeological Research Society, Tales of Jewish Sudan, and University of Khartoum. The platform offers a vast collection of digitized materials, including images, films, manuscripts, and oral histories, spanning over 6,000 years of Sudanese history. See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/3w9qy-x9786

Talking Objects Archive

Reviewed by: Shira Atkinson

The Talking Objects Archive (TOA) includes objects from international museum collections in Europe and Africa. It is a publicly available, free resource newly launched on January 17, 2025, aimed at researchers and artists. The website is available to view in English, French and German. See full review at: https://doi.org/10.17613/qy5s9-s7c82