Photos Show How Ancestors Lived

     In conducting my genealogical research on the web for Sheffield, England, I came across a link to a website that allowed to get a feel of how my ancestors lived through photographs.  It contains photos of Sheffield during various time periods.  It definitely gives me an appreciation for the comforts of living in a more rural setting.  The site is called Picture Sheffield and here is the link:  http://www.picturesheffield.com/

Preservation Recovery Analysis

     I was not able to locate the video dealing with the flooding of a basement at a historical society, but with the help of my preservation professor here is the link to the article containing photos and a description of the event and its aftermath.

     The article was in The Book and Paper Group Annual (Volume 7 1988) and was written by Carol Turchan.  It was entitled "The Chicago Historical Society Flood:  Recovery Analysis Two Years Later".  Here is the link:  http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/bpg/annual/v07/bp07-10.html

Elizabeth Carron: Photographic Access (Reflection #1)

 

The Waldorf-Astoria Archive is a unique archive which houses several collections with an aim to collect, preserve, and organize records of historic and intrinsic value related to the history of the hotel. A secondary goal is to make these records accessible by providing  open-access to materials via a digital platform and to further enhance an understanding of the hotels history within the history of New York City. I’ve looked at several other historic hotels and I have not seen a similar archival undertaking. Many websites include a photo gallery and a short history, but none offered an online digital archival experience. This in itself makes this site special. However, the online library never abandons its commercial focus:

“Our online presence through our digital archive integrates our efforts of providing open-access with a more prestigious archive database. No longer must one set foot on our entire city block to relish in the history of this historically unforgettable destination. We bring the archives into your home; an experience reminiscent of the days when radio projected the Waldorf into every American home.”

The site utilizes Omeka, an open-source collection management software utilizing the Dublin Core metadata standard in order to achieve several goals including:

- An attractive, easily customizable interface.

- Flexible approach to metadata.

- Support for web standards (CSS, XHTML, RSS).

- Import and export functionality utilizing standardized data formats (CSV, XML, JSON).

The utilization of this software does provide a nice point of access in that it builds upon SEO capabilities. The site will turn up in the results; being an unusual source for archival information, this is a definite plus. That said…

A series of tabs affords the user several additional options for navigating the site. The expected administrative tabs such as ‘Home’ were arranged less logically than I would have assumed. The arrangement of the tabs suggests that the resources are less oriented towards research  – also indicated by a lack of a search bar – and is more browsing-friendly.

 

Amazingly, there is an easily accessible finding aid, composed in what I consider to be a traditional finding aid format. Access to the photographic materials are subject-based. As a whole, the finding aid is not arranged at a collection level but at the series level. Perhaps this is conducive to its size. Thus, photographs are at an individual series level divided into subseries such as Administrative Records, Biographical, Buildings and Albums. The Albums subseries contains a number of photo albums created in commemoration of particular special occasions in the history of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

 

The structure of the finding aid is vaguely confusing as it is hierarchical in some ways and highly reliant upon linked cross-references. I selected ‘Politicians’ as my subject access point. Because of the nature of Omeka, and because these items are not organized into collections, my results were broad. I could refine them by title, creator, or date added to the collection, but none of these limiters are helpful in this context. Why would I want to search by the date added to the collection?

I finally found  a record which I thought interesting. Omeka uses Dublin Core and provides a readymade template for entering or uploading metadata. The metadata for this record could have been more robust given that the software bears the brunt of backend development. Omeka also relies heavily upon a system of tags. Those tags make keyword searching more useful. In the tags for this particular record, nowhere did it mention that Willy Brandt was a Chancellor of West Germany (not Germany). Given his celebrity, what broadcast was  being made? When it was made? Was it produced by NBC or ABC? A little research and a stronger title could make for a more specific discovery and a less serendipitous browsing experience.

further reading:

 

Kucsma, Jason, Kevin Reiss, and Angela Sidman. "Using Omeka to Build Digital Collections: The METRO Case Study." D-Lib Magazine 16.3-4 (2010)ProQuest. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

Morton, Amanda. "Digital Tools: Zotero And Omeka." Journal Of American History 98.3 (2011): 952-953. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Mar. 2014

Vestberg, Nina Lager. "Ordering, Searching, Finding." Journal Of Visual Culture 12.3 (2013): 472-489. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

Zinkham, Helena. "Description and Cataloging." Photographs: Archival Care and Management. By Mary Lynn. Ritzenthaler and Diane Vogt-O'Connor. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2006. 184-87. Print.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shuko's Reflection Part 1: Lewis Hine Collections

I visited four online photographic collections to look at how they cataloged the same photograph in different ways. The collections I accessed were: 1. The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, National Child Labor Committee Collection Photograph by Lewis Hine. 2. NYPL Digital Gallery, Photographs concerning labor, housing and social conditions in the United States. / L. W. Hine. 3. George Eastman House, Lewis Hine Collection, and 4. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County digital collections, Lewis Hine Collection.

I approached the collections from a user’s perspective, namely that of a historian researching the history of tenement life in the early 20th century, in pre-depression era New York, focusing on the role of child labor in the household based industry. Lewis Hine clearly documented tenement life and child labor through his work for the National Child Labor Committee, so I searched for images online and decided to refer to a photograph of a family shelling pecan nuts. I examined the four digital collections to see which one would provide the most concise but complete information about this photograph, in order to determine which collection I should choose for my source.

Taken in 1911 (from Library of Congress)

I went to each collection and searched with terms: “Hine, Lewis, pecan” or “Hine, Lewis, nuts.” (I know the term sounds otherwise, but this was the most concise set of terms I came up with!)

 ( Library of Congress)

Library of Congress: The title of the item was: “Mrs. Annie De Martius, 46 Laight St., N.Y.C., nursing a dirty baby while she picks nuts with three other children - Rosie, Genevieve, and Tessie.” After typing the search term, “Hine, Lewis, nuts,” the Library of Congress directed me to several Hine collections. I was not sure how I could reach the photograph I wanted to access; within the collection, I needed to hunt from a dozen random photographs of Hine’s. It had a minimum amount of description; just enough for a historic inquiry, but it had no physical description or processing information. It simply stated: “Photographic print.” 

(NYPL)

NYPL: The title of the item was: “Shelling pecans at home (1900-1937).” I found that the NYPL item description was user-friendly. It had a detailed physical description and an explanation for the type of processing. On the left column, there was a field for “related subjects,” guiding me to look at other photographs tagged as “child labor” or “home labor.” The serious downside of the NYPL description was that they only gave me a very wide range of years for the data taken - between 1900-1937! Since I was supposed to find a photograph taken before 1929, the range was too broad for using the photograph to support illustrating pre-depression life. 

( George Eastman House)

George Eastman House: The item title was: “Home Sorting Nuts 1911.” The item description was the most minimalist of the four. However, they covered just enough information for my research. A person “just browsing” the collection might find the amount of information too little compared to the NYPL.

(UMBC)

UMBC: The title for this item was very long:

4:30 P.M. Mrs. Annie De Maritius, 46 Laight St., front, Nursing a dirty baby while she picks nuts. Was suffering with a sore throat. Rosie, 3 yrs. old hanging around. Conevieve, 6 yrs. old. Tessie, 6 yrs. old picks too. Make $1.50 to $2.00 a week. Husband on railroad works sometimes. Location: [New York, New York (State)]

It was directly transcribed from the original caption written by Hine.

Other than the captioned title, it concisely covered the information that a historian, archivist, and even “web surfer” would find useful. However, the item title was so clumsy that I might hesitate to cite it. 

Conclusion: As a historian trying to find a source for citation, I would choose the George Eastman House for the concise item title and description. I did not find the LC database structure user-friendly. While the NYPL has many search functions to make browsing interesting, some of the item information needs to be more precise. The UMBC is a good research aid, but I did not find it helpful to use a caption as the item title.

While Jackie Dooley discussed “the myth of the need for item-level records,” I needed an item-level record to access the specific photograph through online collections. However, I noticed item-level records did not need to be extensive. By simulating as a historian trying to find a good source for citation, I learned that all I need is concise but precise item-level information. 

Works Cited:
“4:30 P.M. Mrs. Annie De Maritius, 46 Laight St., Front, Nursing a Dirty Baby While She Picks Nuts. Was Suffering with a Sore Throat. Rosie, 3 Yrs. Old Hanging Around. Conevieve, 6 Yrs. Old. Tessie, 6Yrs. Old Picks Too. Make $1.50 to $2.00 a Week. Husband on Railroad Works Sometimes. Location: [New York, New York (State)] :: Lewis Hine Collection.” Accessed March 23, 2014. http://contentdm.ad.umbc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/hinecoll/id/4200/rec/11.

Dooley, Jackie. “Processing and Cataloging of Archival Photograph Collections.” Visual Resources 6 (1995): 85-101.

“George Eastman House.” Accessed March 23, 2014. http://licensing.eastmanhouse.org/GEH/C.aspx?VP3=ViewBox_VPage&VBID=274DQYF1ZBJ&IT=ZoomImage01_VForm&IID=2F3XC59IGM8&PN=6&CT=Search.

“National Child Labor Committee Collection Photographs by Lewis Hine (Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress).” Accessed March 23, 2014. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/207-b.html.

“Shelling Pecans at Home - ID: 416482 - NYPL Digital Gallery.” Accessed March 23, 2014. http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=131315&imageID=416482&word=hine%2C%20lewis%2C%20pecan&s=1&notword=&d=&c=&f=&k=1&lWord=&lField=&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&sort=&total=1&num=0&imgs=20&pNum=&pos=1.

Blog Reflection I

     The collection I have chosen for this reflection is the George Augustus Gardner Collection of photographs [graphic] at Harvard University which is located at the Cabot Science Library.  I originally came across the collection in its digital format and worked backwards to locate the finding aid.

http://hollis.harvard.edu/?itemid=|library/m/aleph|011420459

     The collection is entirely comprised of 1,316 black and white photographs of various sizes, but mostly 14x 22 cm and are primarily of New England.  William Morris Davis, who was a professor in the Geology Department, started the collection circa 1890.  However the collection was named after Gardner when he donated money in 1892 to create a permanent fund for the purchasing of photographs.  In addition, some photos may have been donated by George H. Barton, who was also a professor in the geology department.

     The record that appears when searching Hollis, one of the catalogs at Harvard, for the Gardner collection appears to be what is considered a finding aid for this collection.  This same information has a different visual appearance in Hollis Classic, where one can link to the MARC record.  There is also a link to allow people to view the digital version of this collection.

     Among the positive points of the Hollis record is the fact that the title immediately lets one know that it is a collection of photographs.  Additional positive aspects are one learns the size and makeup of the collection, as well as the different formats and genres that the photographs cover.  Finally, each of the digital versions of the photos has its own descriptive record including a title and a link back to the main record in Hollis.

     The major negative aspect of this record centers around the descriptive phrase “Arranged geographically”  because there is no breakdown of how many photographs are from each New England state, beyond being primarily of Massachusetts. Approximately 200 photos of areas outside of New England and some portraits of geologists.  In addition, the word “include” when listing the photographers, who have 10 or more images in the collection, makes one wonder if there are additional photographers who were not listed.  Finally, after taking a look at some of the digital versions of the photographs, I feel that there may possibly be a finding aid for this collection that is not online.  I am basing this upon the information contained in the photo description record and the information I located that there are at least 11 boxes of Massachusetts photographs.  This is not very convenient for people who would be interested in having a slightly more detailed description of the collection available online.  One issue I have with the digital collection is that it appears not to have the ability to be sorted by which state the photo was taken in.

     Until there is a cataloging record created for photographic material, where one can effectively use photographic terms in describing an item, one will have to deal with the inadequacies of a MARC record.  This is demonstrated by the mandatory use of generic terms in the format field of VM for visual materials and [graphic] in the subfield 245 |h.  The term Visual Materials is “used for projected media, non-projected media, two-dimensional graphics, three-dimensional artifacts or naturally occurring objects, and kits.  Material may be monographic or serial in nature.” (Library of Congress)  This demonstrates the weaknesses of attempting to describe photographs using the cataloging techniques inherited from libraries and archives.

     Finally, the fact that the collection record is completely searchable on the Harvard website means it would be accessible through web searching.  To enhance this, it would benefit researchers if the finding aid with its container list was placed online, especially if the names of the additional photographers and geologists were included.  For the digital collection, it would benefit researchers if they could sort or select images by state or box number.  Both of these enhancements would save researchers time and aid in determining if a visit to see the originals may be necessary.

     Since “digitization projects require a partnership among information professionals during most phases of the project, from materials selection to metadata creation to building a user-friendly searchable interface online” (Hunter, 85), it seems to me that this is what occurred during the creation of the digital version of the Gardner Collection.  It is through collaboration that improvements on all fronts happen when it comes to photographic/digital collections.

Works Cited

Library of Congress. (2006). Scope of the Bibliographic Format. In MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data (Introduction).  Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bdintro.html

Hunter, N. C., Legg, K., & Oehlerts, B. (2010). Two Librarians, an Archivist, and 13,000 Images: Collaborating to Build a Digital Collection. The Library Quarterly 80(1), 81-103.

Blog post #1 - Finding Aid for the Thomas Anshutz papers

For this blog post, I chose the finding aid for the Thomas Anshutz papers, which I located on the Smithsonian Institution website under their Archive of American Art.  http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/thomas-anshutz-papers-5816/more

Thomas Anshutz was an American painter, photographer and art instructor who lived from 1851-1912.  Anshutz worked with a man named Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), and it was there, in 1882, that they started to use photography as an aid in their artwork, and as a teaching tool for their classes.  They used the medium to study nature and life and to pose models and students for the camera to make prints that were available for study.  The photographs range from informal photographs and class portraits to posed studies of nude or classically-dressed figures.  This collection holds vintage, original print photographs and glass plate negatives that were made between approximately 1880 and 1900.

The finding aid written for this collection, which also contains correspondence, writings, financial records and other printed material in addition to the photographs, is set up as a typical finding aid used by archives for various types of collections.  It has biographical information, a scope and contents note, arrangement and series note, series and subseries descriptions, along with all of the other usual categories such as, provenance, how the collection was processed, restrictions on use, etc.  It also has a detailed description and container inventory that not only lists out the photographs and negatives within each folder or box, but also provides the link to the digital images available for them online.

There are many pros to the set-up of this particular finding aid.  One is the wonderful context that is provided for these photographs and negatives.  This finding aid has a very rich and detailed biographical note.  Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), the content standard used by many archives, lists the biographical note as an optimum element add that enhances value by, “providing information about the context in which those materials were created” (34).  The biographical note for this collection is filled with information on Anshutz’s life, which very nicely sets the background for the goals he was trying to achieve using the photographs that he took.  In addition, the lay out of this finding aid allows us to be able to see each individual photograph separately, while also enabling us to see them in the context of the larger collection, providing a sense of the overall composition of his body of work and how each individual photograph fits into the overarching theme.

In addition to the biographical note, the scope and contents note and the subseries description notes are also very thorough and have detailed information about what is contained in the photograph collection and where the objects came from.  The combination of all of these sections, which are rich with information, makes for a wide array of access points that are useful for researchers when searching via the web.  The more information that is available, the more likely that someone is going to hit on a keyword contained in the finding aid as part of their search.  This is particularly useful since the subject category section of this finding aid, where the controlled vocabulary is listed, is fairly brief and does not come close to covering everything that is identified elsewhere in other sections.  One study has shown that this is an issue for finding aid records in general; many of the sections of a finding aid are underrepresented in the terms that are used in subject categories.  Less than half of important keywords from the scope and contents note and the series descriptions are noted as subject terms, and the results are even lower for the biographical note and container list (Czeck, 439).  If records for these photographs were only being created based on subject terms, with no backup from detailed narratives in the other sections of the finding aid, a lot of researchers could miss out on finding relevant work from this collection.

As mentioned previously, this finding aid contains a detailed description and container inventory that lists out the photographs or glass plate negatives within each folder or box, and also provides the link to the digital image available for them online.  There is a huge benefit to this in that it reduces the need for researchers to handle these very fragile photographs.  In our textbook, Photographs; Archival Care and Management, Helena Zinkham suggests that description of photographic material can/should involve more item level description when there is a need to cut down on the over handling of photographs that are fragile or popular (187). The digital images of these photographs and negatives are of a very good quality and should suffice for many users in place of the original.  However, if someone still needs to see the vintage print, the container list shows exactly where each photograph can be found.  There is no need to rifle through the many folders or boxes to find what is needed, resulting in unnecessary handling of the other photographs.  The glass plate negatives are closed to researchers due to their fragile nature, so the digitization of these are very helpful so users can at least see an image of what was previously unavailable to them.

Lastly, this finding aid shows a good hierarchical relationship among the photographs and negatives and has details about the number of each in the collection, as well as the type and format of each.  It lists that they have albumen prints, cyanotypes and platinum prints and it discusses the relationship between the prints and the negatives.  All of this is good information for a researcher to understand the extent of the collection and to help cut down on the need to see the actual prints.

There are also several cons to this finding aid as well.  First and foremost, the series designated for photographs is listed last as series 5.  The photographs and negatives make up the majority of this collection; they are housed in seven boxes, versus the material in the other four series which is small enough to be housed all together in just one box.   The photograph series is the only series important enough to be broken down into subseries to show the various subject matter represented, and the vast majority of the scope and contents note is information on the photographs and negatives.  When producing a finding aid the most important subject matter, and/or the subject matter with the most material, should be listed first.  Placing the photograph series at the end seems to diminish its importance and relevance.  This series should be moved to the top to make it a priority so that researchers can easily see and access it.

This finding aid has a lot of information for users to digest.  It is very lengthy, especially for a collection that only has three boxes of material open to the public.  Some would say it is information overload and that a short, to the point, finding aid is all that researchers need to find what they are looking for.  Zinkham says that, “the finding aid should be an efficient and practical tool that is smaller than the records it describes” (184). While I disagree with the thought that shorter is better, there is something to be said for getting to the point and providing the pertinent information in a concise manner that is easy to browse.  This finding aid does attempt to remedy this by providing an alternative to reading through its contents.  There is a collection summary tab that can be accessed, which greatly pares down all of the notes regarding the collection and provides direct links to the container inventories for each series, as well as the digital images.  This seems to be a good solution to please both camps; the researcher can use whichever method best suits their need.

Another potential con to the finding aid is the way the photograph series is divided into subseries.  They chose to divide into: photographs that were taken by Anshutz and Eakins, as well as other colleagues at PAFA; photographs taken just by Anshutz; unattributed photographs; professional studio photographs; and photographs of Anshutz and works of art.  I see the reasoning behind this schema, but an unintended consequence is that a researcher cannot see the photographs by subject matter.  If someone is looking for a particular subject they have to work through every subseries to match up pictures to suit their needs.  If there was a way to pull them together by subject in the finding aid or digital display, that would ideal.

Lastly, doing item level description and imaging is very work intensive.  A lot of time and effort was put into the writing of this finding aid, and the digitization of the photographs and negatives, and that is not a luxury that most archives have.  Larger collections, with photographs that are not as fragile, are typically not a good fit for this type of detailed work and this should not be a practice that is used across the board.  Luckily, this collection is fairly small and was well suited to this type of work.  The end product was worth the effort and the result is a finding aid that is useful and relevant and a valuable aid to any researcher.

Works Cited

"Part 1 - Describing Archival Material." Describing Archives: A Content Standard. 2nd ed. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2013. 34. Print.

Czeck, R. L. H. "Archival MARC Records and Finding Aids in the Context of End-User Subject Access to Archival Collections." American Archivist 61.2 (1998): 426-40. ProQuest. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.

Zinkham, Helena. "Description and Cataloging."  Photographs: Archival Care and Management. By Mary Lynn. Ritzenthaler and Diane Vogt-O'Connor. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2006. 184-87. Print.

Charles Marville’s Pictures Show What Was Destroyed - NYTimes.com

Charles Marville’s Pictures Show What Was Destroyed - NYTimes.com:



'via Blog this'

Project 562: Combating the Misrepresentation of Native Americans Through Photographs

While I tend to think Jezebel.com is a little too out there, I liked this article a lot. I liked it's links to other sources even more.

40 Must See Photos from the Past

A friend of mine shared this link on Facebook and I just thought the photos were so cool, and that you all might want to check them out.