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.
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.
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