Christine Hilker, director of the Smart Multi-Media Resource Center in the Fay Jones School of Architecture, was recently elected as chair of the Visual Resources Association Foundation and was appointed to a two-year term on the board of directors.

The national association is a “multidisciplinary organization dedicated to furthering research and education in the field of image management within the educational, cultural heritage and commercial environments.”

Hilker has been a member of the Visual Resources Association since the mid-1980s and has twice served in elected positions on the association’s executive board – as treasurer from 1990-93 and as communications and public relations officer from 2004-06. She also received the association’s Distinguished Service Award in 2008.

The resources and support provided by the association have been important to her work and professional development through the years.

“After being an active member of the Visual Resources Association for over 25 years, serving as chair of the foundation’s board of directors is an interesting new challenge,” Hilker said. “I really enjoy staying involved with both organizations. Since there are few people on our campus who do what I do, I value my contacts with colleagues at other institutions.”

The Visual Resources Association Foundation was created in 2007 to be a fundraising avenue for the association. The foundation’s mission is “to advance knowledge in the field of visual resources and image management and to provide educational and training opportunities in support of broad access to cultural information in the digital age. The foundation advances awareness of important issues for digital information management; encourages the application of professional standards, innovative technology, and metadata cataloging protocols; facilitates workplace training; and promotes awareness of intellectual property rights and copyright issues. The VRA Foundation supports a range of educational offerings to help ensure that such information reaches a diverse and global audience.”

Hilker is thrilled to be directly involved in determining the focus and direction of this foundation.

“Although the VRA Foundation is still in developmental stages, it is exciting to fund cutting-edge projects in imaging technology, as well as to support talented individuals in their ongoing education in this fascinating occupation,” she said. “Since the foundation is relatively young, as chairman I also hope to provide structure for solving problems that many new organizations experience – not just in fundraising but also in educating the public about our mission and goals.”

Hilker received a Bachelor of Arts in history and a Master of Education in instructional resources, both from the University of Arkansas. When she arrived at the architecture school in 1979, she found some 65,000 slides, a few reel-to-reel tapes and no catalog of any kind. She bought a video camera and a computer, and began building the collection to 80,000 slides, 1,000 videos and 75,000 digital images. These days, instead of filing slides, student workers spend most of their time scanning them for inclusion in Hilker’s digital database, MDID, which she offers for use campuswide.

For more information about the Visual Resources Association, visit http://www.vraweb.org/.