Digital Collections Assignment

Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas

The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin offers a wealth of digital photo collections for perusal. The Harry Ransom Center includes the Helmut and Alison Gernsheim collection, which proudly features Joseph Nicephore Niépce’s first attempt at photography. Having learned about Niépce in this course, this certainly piqued my interest. In addition to owning the first ever photograph, the Ransom Center’s holdings boast millions of prints and negatives, as well as an array of books, journals, and more.

Let’s take a look at the Niépce collection record. For fields, it includes the collection name, the creator(s) (here, it’s “various photographers”), the number of items (26), the dates it spans (beginning at 1826), the description of contents, accession number(s), cutter number (not applicable), and location(s). At the bottom, it also refers to the Visual Materials Database for additional access and under “See Also,” it refers to the Larry J. Schaaf Niépce Collection. The meat of the record, appropriately, is in the description.

Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas

The description field details the visual content of what is known as the world’s first photograph, as well as technical information. There is so much information in the description of the photograph that one could possibly draw up their own interpretation of it just by reading the description. For example: “It represents the view of the courtyard of Niepce's house at Gras, France, taken from the window of his workroom. On the left side of the image is the pigeon-house (an upper loft in the Niepce family house), to the right of it is a pear-tree with a patch of sky showing through an opening in the branches.” 

Next, the contents of the three boxes in the collection are described in great detail. For example Box 1’s contents are described as such: 

“964:0000:0002-0003 Two portraits of Niepce: one ink, pencil, and watercolor drawing by C. Laguiche (ca. 1795), and one gelatin silver print, from 1913, a copy of a drawing. 

964:0000:0004 One photoetching of Cardinal d'Amboise, printed from a heliograph plate, . The original heliograph plate as well as the other surviving print of Cardinal d'Amboise are owned by the Science Museum, London. 

964:0000:0005-0010 Six gelatin silver prints taken by Helmut Gernsheim on September 7, 1952, of Chalon-sur-Saone, St. Loup-de-Varennes, and the Niepce estate.” 

In my opinion, this collection-level record succeeds in that it avoids the vagueness (or outright blankness) that plagues some archival collection titles, descriptions, and other fields. Here, the user knows exactly what to expect when considering delving further into the Ransom Center’s digital collections. This all sounds well and good, but the clincher of all of this is that this database lets users find photographs not to view online in a digital format, but to find and request desired photographs, and then to go and view them in person in the Reading and Viewing Room in the center -- clearly not a luxury we can all enjoy.

Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas

For my item-level record entry, I went to University of Miami Digital Collections. Here, I was able to peruse digital photographs at the item level. The Historical Photograph Collection, according to its site, showcases hundreds of thousands of photos, negatives, and slides. I opted to look through the 'UM Historical Photographs - Miscellaneous' collection. The preface states that the bare-bones image descriptions are very much a work-in-progress, and that all pertinent information was culled from either the reverse side of the photos or from folders they were stored in. The university hopes to remedy this and fill in any data holes in the years to come. As a visitor to the site, I must admit that I was a bit relieved that they were so forthcoming about their descriptive shortcomings. I tend to cut slack, so to speak, to people or organizations who are self-aware in regards to their limitations, but are striving for the best work they can hope to achieve.

I decided to look at a photo of famous artist Andy Warhol. Sadly, the university wasn't kidding when they admitted to the lack of information to go with their photographs. It seems that they are simply working with what they were given, which doesn't seem to be much. The title (simply "Andy Warhol") and photographer credit (Mike Tighe) both appear at the bottom of the photo (this fact appears in the 'Note' field. The genre field lists it as a photograph, and honestly, this field probably doesn't need to be here at all (I think we all know what we're looking for here). It is located in Coral Cables, Fla., and the physical description provides dimensions and states that it is a single black-and-white photograph, but doesn't indicate the developing process used. Other fields include the owning repository, the collection title and number, its series, the box it is contained within, copyright information, digital ID, and the date that the digital image was created.

In comparison to the Ransom Center collection description, this Miami University item record certainly pales. I fully understand that MU have limited means and information at their disposal, and that it is for our benefit that some of these wonderful images have been digitized at all, but I still found the entry lacking. I hope that they can flesh out their item records as more information becomes available, because they do seem to have quite a formidable set of collections in their hands. Overall, I was quite impressed by the Ransom Center's Niépce Collection's description, I just wish I was able to actual view the works online. In a perfect archival world, we would always have the digital access that MU provides users with the painstakingly documented information that the Ransom Center offers. I suppose it's a good thing to strive for!

Courtesy of University of Miami Libraries

References:

Harry Ransom Center
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/collections/photography/

University of Miami Historical Photograph Collection
http://merrick.library.miami.edu/digitalprojects/photographs.php