Online Photograph Collection Records

Travels in China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc. [picture] /[assembled] by Benjamin Greene

While browsing through the National Library of Australia’s catalog I began the investigation by searching for ‘Japan’ and limiting to pictures. I began by looking at the record for: Travels in China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc. [picture] / [assembled] by Benjamin Greene.  The record gives a physical description of the contents of the album—81 albumen silver photographs, 2 watercolours, 2 lithographs.... The record also notes that the album was exhibited. One major issue with the collection record is that the there isn’t any description of what is actually in the album except for the title listing the countries. The other countries visited are not listed anywhere on the collection level, fortunately they do seem to be listed in the titles at the item level. The collection is entitled ‘Travel Photos,’ but this title is misleading because there are a number of portrait images that look like they were taken in a studio and these are intermingled with a few images of food, some geological features, and a few landscape images. More time should have been spent describing the content of the collection as a whole. This might be a result of More Product Less Process or it could be as Mathes states that MARC records were “designed to support card catalog access in libraries, not the generation of finding aids for archives” (3).

 
When looking at the collection on the item level there is no description except for the title and because the titles are all derived from the illuminated title page we end up with some titles like ‘Yokohama Belle,’ which I’m sure isn’t part of any controlled vocabulary. The real issue isn’t that the item is titled ‘Yokohama Belle,’ because it should be titled this as the photographer designated it, but that this image is only findable by ‘Yokohama Belle.’ The cataloger needs to identify some of the content of the image, perhaps: Japanese Woman Seated in Winter Kimono.

 
I’m not positive but I imagine that their online catalog may only be able to search the MARC 245 field because all the information is packed—poorly—into that field. The cataloger has used the $h—medium designator—and designated all photographs as [picture]. The only way to find out that these are Albumen prints is to go back to the parent collection record. Again I believe that some of these issues stem from MARC’s use as a library catalog and that it was never intended for use in cataloging photographs. The wildest title I stumbled across was this beauty:

[The finish of heat 2 of the men's 200 metres race which no. 68 Karl-Friedrich Haas (Germany) won, followed by no. 62 Janecek (Czechoslovakia), no.6 Winston (Australia) third, and no. 71 Milkha Singh (India) and no. 25 Ushio (Japan), Olympic Games, Melbourne, 26 November 1956] [picture].

I commented earlier that the titles didn’t reflect the content in a meaningful way to provide access; this title goes too far in describing the content. The title should be Men’s 200 metres race1956 Olympics with the rest of the information in a note.

            In summary most records appear findable on some level either at the collection level or at the item level. A researcher may have to spend more time searching for photographs but some access points are provided.  It also appears that some of the troubles within records originate from the use of MARC to catalog photographs and perhaps More Product Less Process.

The Charles Chusseau-Flaviens Collection

 

The finding aid listed on the George Eastman House’s (GEH) website is highly detailed and takes into consideration description, cataloging, preservation, and access.

            The collection is described as Ritzenthaler suggests with an archival description that focuses on provenance and summarizes the contents of the collection (167). As opposed to the finding aid of the National Library of Australia’s Travels in China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc. the GEH lists all the countries in the collection and the percentages of photographs from each country.

            It is also interesting that the finding aid mentions access and preservation concerns. Noting that the collection is open for research but researchers will be provided with digital surrogates to identify which glass-negatives need to be consulted. The aid also mentions that the nitrate negatives are stored off-site in cold storage and that noticed needs to be given before any negatives can be made available for viewing.

            The finding aid itself looks to be set in the same format that Ritzenthaler suggests on pages 169-70. The sections are even in the same order: creator, identity, content, access, acquisition, related materials, and notes. Judging by the depth of description it is easy to see that is an important collection at the GEH.

            For individual items and for continuity I again viewed images that were identified as Japan. This sub-series is identified as 17 negatives and includes a brief description of the subjects: rice farming, silk merchant, royal family, celebrities, and street life. The subjects listed are very helpful in helping researchers, but looking at the negatives there are several that are of temples and Buddhist statues and these aren’t mentioned in the subject heading of the sub-series and should be included. This makes one wonder how accurate the subject lists actually are.

            The records for each individual photograph list the: photographer, title, date the photograph was taken, photographic process, dimensions, accession year, lot number, and item number. It is interesting to compare the level of depth in description in the finding aid compared to the level of description at the object level. While the title for each image gives some indication of the content most of the titles are written in French with the French names for Japanese cities and streets, for example: “Japon chaise a porteur/Japon/Sous reserves des droits de l'auteur.” If a researcher were searching an online catalog by title would he or she be able to find these images?  Looking at some of the other records in the entire collection it looks as though some images were given subject headings when the title on the object wasn’t sufficient. If I had to guess I might think that because of the Japanese content of these images there may have been some hesitancy when giving subject headings. This could also be evidence of the lack of standards for cataloging photographs at the time when these images were cataloged, which was in 1988.

            To conclude, the Charles Chusseau-Flaviens finding aid has more depth and broader scope than the Travels in China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc. collection record but the level of detail between the two collections could be a reflection or resources for cataloging and usage. 

Work Cited

Mathes, Adam. “Scurlock Photographs Cataloging Analysis.” Dec. 2004.

Ritzenthalaer, M.L., Vogt-O'connor, D., Zinkham, H., Carnell, B., & Peterson, K (2006). Photographs: Archival Care and Management. Chicago: Society of American Archivists