Description of Photographic Collections

How photographs are arranged and described in an archives is important because it can mean the difference between successfully finding an item with minimal handling of delicate materials and combing through numerous boxes for a single negative.  Also, proper photographic arrangement makes information more easily accessible, facilitating information retrieval and exchange between archivists and users or researchers.  

I chose to examine the descriptions of photographic collections in the online catalogs of the Northwest Digital Archives (NWDA) and the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.  

The Northwest Digital Archives

NWDA homepage

The NWDA is a consortium of repositories in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Alaska, and Washington.  This collaboration arose due to significant subject commonalities among repositories in the area including agriculture, forest, fisheries, natural resources, politics, Native American language and culture, outdoor recreation and religion.  The NWDA provides access to collections (correspondence, diaries and photographs) through a union database of EAD finding aids.  By adding finding aids to the NWDA database, member institutions and researchers can cross-search collections and relate them to materials at other institutions. 

It is important to note that the NWDA uses Encoded Archival Description (EAD), an XML standard for encoding finding aids.  It's strengths lie in its origins within the archival community, it hierarchical nature, and its ease of conversion to other formats, particularly websites.  However, EAD is designed for finding aids rather than records-orientated databases, making it flexible and varied in implementation.  Also, content standards aren't agreed upon, hampering interoperability (Mathes).

To ensure consistency, the NWDA defines a finding aid as containing at least the following elements: Overview of Collection, Biographical or Historical Note, Content Description, Arrangement, Administrative Information, Subjects and Detailed Description of the Collection.  Institutions may choose to include additional information.  

The NWDA homepage offers a basic search engine; however, to ensure that I received results that included photographs, I chose do a detailed search under the "Search" tab.  Here users can search by keyword or phrase, pre-determined NWDA categories, material type, member repository, or simply browse finding aid titles.  I searched by material type for "Photographs" and randomly chose a few collections to look through.  

I first looked at a finding aid from the Special Collections of the University of Washington Libraries for a collection of cartes de visites of 19th century actors.  At a glance, the finding aid provides the agreed upon information: overview of collection, historical background, content description, use of collection, administrative information, and detailed description of the collection.  

Example of a finding aid in the NWDA database

The "Overview of the Collection" section includes information such as title, dates, quantity, collection number, summary, repository, and language.  The "Historical Background" section was very well written, providing information not only on the photographic format but the actors and actresses represented in the collection as well as notable photographers.  The "Content Description" and "Use of Collection" fields could have been expanded on.  The collection is briefly described as "consist[ing] of 605 carte de visite studio portraits of entertainers, actors, and actresses who performed on the American stage in the mid- to late 1800s."  Also, collection rights are only described as "open to the public."  At the bottom, "Subjects," also known as access points (Ritzenthaler), use Library of Congress Subject Headings for keywords and include genre or form terms (i.e. cartes de visite, portrait photographs).  Also, I did notice that many finding aids, including this one, lacked information concerning the acquisition and the arrangement of the collection.  Otherwise all the fields discussed in class and readings were present.

The detail that went into arranging and describing the collection is truly commendable.  The cartes de visites were arranged alphabetically by performer, although it is unclear how multiple photographs of a single performer were arranged.  Box numbers are labeled on the left and each folder is given a unique number to make locating the specific file easier (when five folder labels begin with "Edwin Booth" this becomes necessary!) 

Folder descriptions for the Cartes de Visites collection

After looking at examples of folder labels for photographs in class, I was excited to see the level of detail in the folder labels for this collection.  To start, most folders provided the names of the performer or performers, their occupation (i.e. actress, actor, magician) and the years they were alive.  If any of this information was cataloger provided, it was surrounded by brackets or succeeded by a question mark.  If applicable, the folder description then provided the name of the show and the role the performer was depicted in.  This is useful if a researcher knows the performers in a play, but it would be tedious to look for materials by play only.  Also, when possible, the photographer's name and city is provided.  Again, this isn't too helpful if looking for examples of a particular photographer's work, but is useful information nonetheless.  Not all folders provided all of these details, but including this information helps the researcher identify differences in the collection materials without having to unnecessarily look through every item.  

This is a particularly large collection and it's obvious that the repository took time to not only properly label but also structure the finding aid to make it easy to read, making use of white space to keep the user from being overwhelmed and using folder descriptions to differentiate collection materials.    

This example proved to be a well structured finding aid overall, but a closer look at other finding aids, reveals major inconsistencies in content structure.  Data content standards are important because they "govern the order, syntax and form which data values are entered" (Mahard).  This makes it easier to look through finding aids, compare data and locate information.  In looking through multiple finding aids, I found it distracting to see that data was entered in different formats and that the arrangement of the collection were documented in different ways.  

For example, the John D. Lattin Papers has a quantity of "4.5 cubic feet, including 20 photographs" while the A.V. Love Dry Goods and Loft Building Photograph Collection has a quantity of "48 negatives, 48 contact prints, 16 photographic prints."  Also, I found some finding aids that identify the box and folder number on the left and include another number near the folder description that doesn't seem to correspond to anything, whereas most institutions label the box number on the left and the folder number on its own or with the folder description.  Without adopting a data content standard like AACR2 or CCO, inconsistencies like this will only continue and possibly get worse.  

This finding aid identifies box number, folder number
 and a third unknown number .  This format is unlike
others in the archive, creating confusion for users. 

However, the repositories that consist the NWDA have their own practices and convincing every member to change its policies would be a monumental task.  The NWDA doesn't appear to be an archive that processes its own collections (the repository isn't listed in the search field) but is rather a places for members to share information about their collections and encourage collaboration.  

This became increasingly evident when I tried to look at item-level descriptions of photographs listed in the finding aids.  For all item-level descriptions, I was directed outside of the NWDA website to the repository associated with the finding aid.  Sometimes I received a direct link, other times I was directed to the repository search engine and had to search again for the image.   For the images I located, the item-level descriptions varied by repository.  

An example of an item-level description by the Museum of History and
Industry.  Most description fields are provided, but I found it
interesting how heavily linked this record is.  I wonder how helpful
this is to researchers.  

Overall, I found the repository's website easy to search through if I were randomly browsing or was willing to search using the pre-determined subject fields.  I feel one of the strengths of the repository is in identifying defined subjects within collections because it helps link alike collections in multiple repositories.  Even though the NWDA identifies EAD as the standard for finding aids, they are, unfortunately, still largely dependent on member repository policies.  This can create a little confusion when looking at finding aids from multiple institutions. 

The Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

Bentley Historical Library's homepage

The Bentley Historical Library (BHL) houses the archives for the University of Michigan and is dedicated to the documentation and preservation of university records.  The BHL defines a "historical record" as inactive yet substantive and are selected, preserved and made accessible for their enduring historical value.  

The BHL's finding aids are coded in Standard Generalized Mark-up Language (SGML) and comply with EAD.  

Finding aids are defined as guides that describe and provide access to collections or archival records, and are divided into eight sections: Summary Information, Access and Use, Biography/History, Arrangement of the Collection, Collection Scope and Content Note, Controlled Access Terms, Contents List, and Additional Descriptive Information.  

List of search engines for BHL's collections

The BHL offers numerous ways to search its collections, so I chose to search through their Image Bank for "Students."  I first tried searching through the "Online Finding Aids" but noticed I wasn't able to access item-level descriptions.  However, through the Image Bank, I was linked back to the finding aid.

The finding aid for the Emil Lorch Papers is a well-written and very detailed, covering the eight categories mentioned above.  However, a lot of context around the photographs is lost due to how the archivist arranged and described the images.  First, the collection is paper-heavy and arranged by extracting the photographs and placing them in their own series.  Unfortunately, links to other types of documents is lost because the images aren't with the original files.  Secondly, while the archivist took the time to arrange the photos by county and city, he or she didn't give them helpful titles.  The photographs are arranged alphabetically by county and then city with no other description to aid in finding images.  

Folder names for photographs in the Emil Lorch Papers

This finding aid wouldn't provide much help in discerning what the photograph is about.  Is it a portrait, a landscape, a social commentary, an aerial? Are there people? What angle?  The point of the finding aid is to provide access to and detail about the collection but a user wouldn't be able to figure out what each photograph was about through these descriptions.  

"Aerial view of harbor at Mackinac
 Island." Emil Lorch. Courtesy
of the Bentley Historical Library. 

Incidentally, the item-level description offers a different (and better) title for the photograph.  In the Image Bank, the photograph is titled "Aerial view of harbor at Mackinac Island with St. Ignace and the Upper Peninsula in the distance."  In the finding aid, only "Mackinac Island" is listed.  

Overall, the item-level description is fairly basic, and doesn't provide much detail or history about the photograph.  The record lists Title, Photographer, Subjects, Genre, Collection Title, Collection Creator, Location, Copyright and Repository.  The main purpose of the Image Bank is to showcase the BHL's holdings and to provide digital versions of photographs.  This is evident by the abundance of LCSH subject headings and the lack of historical context and description.  

Item-level description for "Aerial view of harbor at Mackinac Island"

Overall, I found the finding aids in the BHL well-written; however, they don't provide as much detail about the photographs as they do about paper materials.  The Image Bank does a better job of providing information about the image but lacks the historical context to place the photograph as a historical record.  It relies on the user to refer back to the finding aid for the historical aspect.  

References

Mahard, Martha. "Management of Photographic Archives." Spring 2013, Week 7. Lecture given February 28, 2013.  

Mathes, Adam.  "Scurlock Photographs Cataloging Analysis." December 2004. 

Ritzenthaler, Mary L, and Diane Vogt-O'Connor. Photographs: Archival Care and Management. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2006.