Museum of the Rockies Photo Archive

   Museum of the Rockies Photo Archive 

The Museum of the Rockies located in Montana houses collections of dinosaur fossils, American Indian history, and a living history farm. A brief description of the photo collection is easily located under the “Collections” tab in the main toolbar. 

The photo archive at MOR contains photographs pertaining to the Northern Rockies Region of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. The entire holdings of the Photo Archive consist of over 80,000 photographs. Subject matter of the photographs include Yellowstone National Park, railroads of the northwest, farming and ranching, regional industries, and people and events. The archive also contains photography collected from local and regional photographers. Clicking on the “Photo Archive” link brings the viewer to the online searchable archive. 

Aesthetically, the style of the archive could be updated, but the search and browse options almost make up for the stylistic weaknesses. On the left side of the page there is a large tool bar. Users can search the archive by subject, location, date, surname, photographer, or by text and catalog number. There is also the option of browsing by collection. 

To begin, I clicked “by Subject” underneath the “Image Database Searches.” Following the click, I was shown a lengthy alphabetized list of subjects, ranging from agriculture to the YMCA. 

I chose “cowboys,” and the search turned up one photograph:

The description contains a title, date, location, photographer, format, source, rights, and catalog number. The title is accurate, “C.W. Whissman on Horse, Harlowton, Montana.” The photo description goes into further detail, describing the type of horse. Clicking on the actual image maximizes for better viewing, and more details about the photograph can be seen, such as subject headings and the surname. 

Next, I decided to browse by collection. I randomly clicked on the “info” link next to the  Lamme Collection. A brief description of the collection provided important background information to the collection. The Lamme Collection consists of more than 300 original 5 x 7 inch glass plate negatives which were taken by Maurice Allison Lamme between 1897 and 1910. The information provided is mostly biographical, but useful because a large number of the photographs were of Lamme’s friends and family members. 

Browsing the actual collection is neat because the image is provided along with the catalog information. Each description on the results page contains elements such as: title, date, location, photographer, format, source, rights, and catalog number. As mentioned previously, once a photograph is selected, information such as subject headings and surnames is provided. 

I had a problem with some of the descriptions and titles. Some photographs possessed clear and self-explanatory titles and descriptions, while others were very vague. For example, one description states, “Foster Camp, Middle Creek (Hyalite Creek) Hyalite Canyon, Montana. Vintage 5x7 glass negative, 5x7 in. copy print.” If the image was not provided, I wouldn’t have known there were people in the photograph. This is the case with quite a few of the descriptions, where the title of the photo is the exact same as the description field. 

Some of the photographs have longer descriptions, but rather than just describing the visual aspects of the photo, provide context for the image. For example, this photograph of the Julie Martin Residence:

All of the photos in this collection have “image/jpeg” as their format, which makes sense because it is the online photo archive of their physical archive. The original format is provided under the “description” field of each photo. In the case of the Lamme collection, all images are photographic prints from 5x7 glass negatives. A large number of the images are labeled “copy prints.” 

I wanted to see how other collections were described in terms of format, so I clicked on “Other Photo Archive Collections.” The first page of results brought a variety of formats. Some images just say “black and white photo,” which is fine except that could mean a variety of things. There are a large number of images which just say “print” on them, which isn’t very descriptive either. Stereograph showed up several times, along with albumen prints. One image was described as a “card photograph.” 

Despite the variety and somewhat vague descriptions of format and descriptions of what a photograph consists of, the MOR does a wonderful job of providing a consistent formula for photographic description. 

reference: http://www.morphotoarchive.org/info.php

                 http://museumoftherockies.org/Collections/PhotoArchive.aspx