What does it mean to truly look closely? This year’s VRA annual conference, Zooming In, invites visual resources professionals to shift from the wide view and settle into the details, the workflows, tools, discoveries, and community conversations that define our day-to-day practice.
Delivered fully online, VRA 2026 brings together a rich program drawn from 40+ proposals spanning panels, lightning talks, virtual tours, and more. Whether you’re navigating new roles in your institution, exploring how AI is reshaping cataloging and metadata work, grappling with collection development decisions, or finding new ways to activate and engage communities through visual collections, there’s a session built for where you are right now.
This year’s program reflects both the breadth and the depth of our field: from digitizing ancient scrolls to first-time service management, from reparative description to classroom pedagogy, and interactive digital maps. It’s a conference for asking: what happens when we look more carefully?
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As artificial intelligence tools become increasingly woven into metadata and cataloging workflows, this themed session brings together four presentations examining both the opportunities and the open questions AI raises for the visual resources field — from accessibility and inclusivity to authenticity and professional judgment. A joint Q&A will follow all four presentations.
AI in Moderation: Assessing the Efficacy and Inclusivity of AI-Generated Alt Text for Library Digital Collections Can AI be used to generate alt text that meets standards for accessibility and inclusive metadata? This study uses a vision-language model to describe a wide range of image content, including abstract artworks, comparing AI-generated text with human-created alt text for the same images.
Student-Led Exploration of AI Support in Metadata Quality Control This presentation documents the process, findings, and ongoing questions from exploring how AI tools can support different stages of metadata workflows. Rather than positioning AI as a replacement for professional judgment, this framework keeps catalogers central to the process — investigating AI assistance such as flagging formatting deviations, suggesting controlled vocabulary, and supporting description, validation, and review tasks, with catalogers retaining full authority to review, accept, or reject any recommendation.
Beyond the Prompt: Evaluating AI Tools for Visual Resource Cataloging This presentation extends earlier work presented at VRA on AI-assisted cataloging from images, exploring how different commercial AI tools handle the same metadata tasks. Focusing on consistency, schema adherence, and workflow integration, it offers a practical perspective for catalogers navigating an expanding landscape of AI options.
The Three Pillars of Authenticity: A Collaborative Approach for Digitized Still Images Concerns about authenticity in digitization workflows for images are increasing, especially with the rise of generative artificial intelligence. This presentation shares the goals of the Digital Object Authenticity Working Group (DOAWG), which encourages discussion and advocacy for best practices related to describing authenticity in the cultural heritage community.
