INFO 284: Managing Photographic Collections
Fall 2021
Course Description
This class will examine issues involving managing photographic collections in archives. Topics covered will include photographic process identification, visual literacy, arrangement and description, storage/preservation needs, access, reference, digitization, rights and reproductions, curation, and born-digital image archives.
Learning outcomes
Understand and manage the complex issues relating to photograph digitization and born-digital images, including management, access, metadata, and long-term preservation.
Identify and understand preservation concerns among many common types of photographic print and negative processes.
Apply archival rules of appraisal, arrangement, and description to complex visual archives.
Apply research skills to visual archives for purposes of patron reference, image identification, and curatorial or collection research.
Portfolio
While this course is generally not about digital curation, the course material provided context for developing a digitization program for film and print collections and managing digital surrogates through metadata and digital asset management.
Finding Aid
This project expanded upon my experience with developing archival finding aids for general collections. However, it addressed the unique identification and processing challenges of image artifacts—especially if the collection contains digital surrogates.
Cataloging Stereographs
Through this project, I became familiar with the complexities of cataloging photographs. We had the option of choosing the schema and content standard. I chose the VRA Core and Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO) standards not just because their strength is in visual artifacts but because they deal with digital surrogates of physical objects.
History of Aerial Photography
Photographic collections present unique challenges not found in textual collections. They are often overlooked as primary sources or even as research data. Therefore, understanding the history and technical aspects of negatives and prints is as critical as preservation and access. Through my paper, I investigated the technological advances that came with aerial photography, how these photos continue to provide critical research data, and why they are candidates for digitization programs.
Exhibit: Record and Weapon
Exhibitions—physical and digital—are a powerful outreach tool for connecting users with cultural heritage collections. This assignment explored the challenges of curating a photographic exhibition, including identifying the audience, identifying a collection, curating the collection, and writing about it.
Professional application
Since taking this course, I have become the image media specialist in the archive where I work. While my focus is digitized photographs, I regularly advise the collections management team on our physical photographic collections (of which we have over a million negatives and prints), including storing, handling, digitization, rehousing, preservation, and metadata application.
The best practices and concepts I learned from the finding aid and curation projects have directly benefited me in preparing collections of digitized Manhattan Era photographs for public outreach projects. Understanding the unique history of aerial photographs has also been uniquely beneficial because I now work with a substantive negative collection that includes aerial photographs. My research paper and curation project prepared me to further research and write about these collections and identify digitization challenges with the large format film negatives.
The cataloging assignment directly translated into selecting CCO as the content standard for a photographic back-cataloging project I recently initiated. Additionally, because I had already worked with the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM) in the assignment, I knew it would not work for the project. I selected Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus instead.