The Dartmouth Collage was a collaborative project within Dartmouth's Computing Services department. The purpose of the project was to foster community, to make innovative use of technology by staging a Web "event," and, by combining and juxtaposing portraits of individuals, to unveil a grand and diverse portrait of Dartmouth College as a whole. "Portraits" was a term loosely defined, so that participants could bring anything they considered to be a representation of their persona. A portrait could be a physical object, but it could also be a song or a dance. The only requirement was that submissions could not be in violation of copyright. Since this project was really more of an event than a Web site, the focus of our planning was on logistical concerns such as facilities and personnel. We created a shell Web site in advance, made posters to publicize the event, and created a database to keep track of submission information so that one person's portrait did not get attributed to another participant. The day before the event was dedicated to setting up the facility with the hardware, software, and networking required for the next day. The event was held on May 7, 1997 in Dartmouth's Instructional Services facility, largely because of the availability of video and audio recording equipment. The facility also has a large studio which served as the hub for the day. Participants entered the studio and checked in at the check-in station, where they were asked to describe or show their portrait. Depending on their submission, they were directed to either the flat-bed scanning station (for photographs and small objects), the digital camera station (for larger objects or portraits), or upstairs to the recording studio (for audio or video recording). Volunteers from Instructional Services, Academic Computing, and Dartmouth's Webmaster Group were on hand at each of these stations to record and/or digitize the portraits. At the end of the day, 85 portraits had been collected. Throughout the day the portraits were adjusted, scaled, and compressed for Web delivery, and then added to the site. The original concept was that portraits would be added to the site in quasi real-time that is, shortly after they were digitized. We wanted to present the Collage as performance art, using the Web as the stage. However, the reality was that it took two intense days to incorporate all 85 portraits into the web site. The Collage was an overwhelming success. Participants and volunteers were all caught up in the spirit of the day, and visitors to the site continue to spend time paging through the portraits and making collages. The Collage site was chosen by the Chronicle of Higher Education as the Site of the Day for May 7, 1997. We hope to hold another Collage event in the Spring of 1998. We used the following software and hardware to make the Collage. Flat-bed Scanning Station Apple Macintosh 8100/80AV Apple Color OneScanner Adobe Photoshop Digital Camera Station Apple Macintosh 8100/80 Kodak DCS420 camera with a 170MB memory card [on loan from Professional Camera, LTD. of White River Junction, VT] Adobe Photoshop Video/Audio Station Sony 537, 3-chip video camera Apple Macintosh 8500/120 Data Translation Media100qx video digitizing board FWB SledgeHammer 16GB hard disk Adobe Premiere MovieCleaner Pro Web Site Development Stations Apple Macintosh 7500/100 Adobe Photoshop MacroMedia SoundEdit 16 Adobe Premiere MovieCleaner Pro Bare Bone BBEdit Netscape Navigator StarMax 4000/200 Adobe Photoshop MacroMedia SoundEdit 16 Adobe Premiere MovieCleaner Pro Bare Bone BBEdit Netscape Navigator Photos by Joseph Mehling ('69), Dartmouth College Photographer