Maine Memory Network

I chose to look at the Maine Memory Network's online collection.  The Maine Memory Network is a digital repository managed by the Maine Historical Society.  This repository compiles photographs from libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies.  The Maine Memory Network takes responsibility for digitizing, cataloging, and managing the digital objects while providing online access for users and researchers.  The mission of the Maine Memory Network is to "help communities and schools learn about, celebrate, and share their local history".

The Maine Memory Network currently has over 200,000 historical items in its database contributed by over 200 partners.  The primary audience for these collections seems to be Maine residents, researchers of Maine history, and students.

The search function on the website is very accessible and intuitive, allowing the user to search by keyword, town, or contributor, or to browse by topic area, or even to perform an advanced search with multiple limiters or criteria.

The first item level record I looked at was the "Sailing ship the William H. Conner".  The initial thing I noticed about this record was that when I looked at the photograph, the image was primarily of three individuals and seemed to only be a photograph of the sailing ship secondarily or incidentally.  

Description:
This Searsport ship was built in 1877.  From left are Mrs. B.F. Colcord, Capt. B.F. Colcord (master of this vessel) and Capt. Albert Ballard Colson.

Since the names of the three individuals are known and given in the description, my immediate reaction was that the photograph should include the names of the three individuals so that researchers could search for the image by the subjects' names.  However, when I performed a search using "Colcord" as my search term, I did find this image.  Maine Memory Network does create many subjects for each image, which allows for researchers to find the photographs through numerous searches.  While I still would like to see the names of the individuals in the record title (since they seem like the primary subjects, and not the boat), I suppose that the large sailing vessels may have outlived several captains, and that the name of the ship is of the most interest.  

The Media description for this record states "black and white photograph".  I think this information is probably the minimal for media description.  The record should express the dimensions of the photograph.  Some records for other images in the Maine Memory Network's collection contain media descriptions of "stereograph", "ambrotype", "glass plate", "carte de visite".  And some of the records do contain dimensions for the analog objects.

                           

Some object records, such as the "Charles Asbury Stephens and wife, Norway, ca. 1920" record, contain more of a substantial Biographical/Historical note for researchers.  

Although I could not find any collection-level descriptions on the Maine Memory Network, I was able to locate individual objects that came from a scrapbook.  

The only way to determine that this photograph is part of a scrapbook is by looking at the "Collection" description in the individual item's record.  In this record, it reads "Dolly Dunphy scrapbook".  While it is a good thing that the record contains evidence that the photograph is part of a large scrapbook collection, there is no way of determining the original order of the scrapbook or gaining an understanding of any of the book's composition.

One of the greatest aspects of the Maine Memory Network website is the "Share What You Know" capability.  This allows researchers or community members to add information to these objects, bolstering the content for the photographs.  Although folksonomy and tagging have become fairly ubiquitous, I think the sharing aspect of this digital repository is a really great way of preserving, perpetuating, and linking the communal memory of Maine residents and researchers through historic objects and photographs.