Ever
since the public introduction of photographic processes in 1839, varying models
of describing and classifying photographs and accessing them for research and
education have posed problems for historians and scholars. Collected by
libraries, archives, and museums since the mid-nineteenth century, regarded
variously as scientific tools, faithful witnesses to the past, historical
relics, cultural icons, objects of aesthetic veneration suitable for exhibition,
mere visual reference works for casual consultation, or the annoying detritus of
commerce and personal sentiment, their varying status has challenged theories
and practices of description, care, access, and exhibition. From the earliest
tentative, provisional steps of the nineteenth century, when collections and
archives were built with often confusing and inconsistent guidelines, to the
proliferation of photographic collections in public institutions at the
beginning of the twenty-first century, seemingly conflicting goals for
acquisition and use have introduced growing complexities, burdened by
alternately insightful or arcane transformative academic theories about the
nature and functions of photography, sometimes accompanied by well-developed
tradition and practice.
The
founding of collections inevitably shapes photographic practice and thinking.
These complexities reflect and result from the multi-faceted nature of the
medium itself. At the turn of the millennium, photographs are found in the
collections of a wide range of institutions, including corporate and
institutional archives, manuscript collections, historical societies, libraries,
history museums, and art museums. There are so many models for the formation and
servicing of photographic collections that curators, archivists, and librarians
of newly formed institutions or photographic departments often have difficulty
sifting through the alternatives to find an appropriate paradigm. Some of these
collections and institutional models bear philosophical viewpoints with
attendant established traditions which seem to preclude some of the popular and
cherished practices of the other types of institutions. This occurs in part
because institutions make conscious decisions about the type of public they will
serve and are less concerned about other audiences which cannot utilize their
resources due to lack of readily available information about their holdings,
access tools which do not fit the methodologies of the excluded or neglected
groups, and other factors. For example, art historians may be unaware of
photographic resources in archives which might be of aesthetic interest because
these repositories catalog their materials at the group level according to
subject content and may not identify individual photographers. Art museums
collect and catalog photographs at the item level according to criteria of
connoisseurship, aesthetic judgment, and a desire to document the careers and
interrelationships of photographers as artists, and do not usually provide
access to subject content, even when the photographs have obvious documentary
value. Archives collect and catalog photographs at the group level, often
failing to provide access to the documentary elements of individual photographs.
The
general public and many researchers view the Smithsonian as a single unified
institution, when in reality it is composed of independent administrative units,
each with its own mandates, mission, and practices. There is a certain degree of
collecting overlap within certain areas, as might be expected. Whereas the
nineteenth-century core was comparatively rational and neatly divided by
discipline in an almost taxonomic fashion, newer additions to the Smithsonian
added complexity and occasional overlaps. For example, the Museum of Natural
History collected Asian and African artifacts as anthropological and
ethnographic specimens. The newer Freer collection also contained Asian
artifacts, collected for their aesthetic value rather than as ethnographic
objects. Much later, objects in the Museum of African Art tended to replicate
some of the African collections in Natural History. The Smithsonian is not
unique in having multiple separate repositories for photographs: for example, on
its web site, Harvard University notes that it houses daguerreotypes within
fourteen administratively separate repositories. Try as they might, neither the
Smithsonian nor Harvard can wholly succeed in convincing users that these
repositories should always be regarded (or even remembered) as separate without
submersion into the corporate identity of the parent organization.
The
earliest Smithsonian photographic exhibition and collecting activities occurred
in the area of anthropology and ethnography, documenting American Indians and
the exploration of the American West. But in the late 1880s the Smithsonian
photographer Thomas W. Smillie began acquiring photographs and artifacts related
to the history of photography, forming the nucleus of what became, successively,
the Section of Photography within the Division of Graphic Arts, then the
Division of Photographic History. The latter collection attempted to document
all aspects of the history of photography, in terms of technology, art,
scientific applications of photography, the social and cultural impact of
photography, etc. For decades the Photographic History Collection maintained
exhibits on the science and technology of photography, combined with a gallery
for exhibitions of photographic art. Original photographs were transferred from
the anthropological collections, where copies were retained. Indian
daguerreotype portraits from the Bureau of American Ethnology were transferred
to curator A.J. Olmstead's collection because the BAE was more interested in
images as documents and records than as artifacts and was content with copies of
the original daguerreotypes, but Olmstead sought the daguerreotypes as
interesting examples of obsolete processes as well as for their aesthetic value.
The
daguerreotype of Keokuk, a Sauk chief, functioned alternately as: (a) a record
of ethnographic or anthropological significance; (b) an example of obsolete
photographic process, documenting the history of photographic technology; (c) a
landmark in the career of a notable photographer, Thomas Easterly; and (d) a
portrait of a famous American. Its independent aesthetic value as an image is
relevant as well. [This daguerreotype has been in the collections of the NAA,
then Photographic History, and finally has been on extended loan to the National
Portrait Gallery.] In 1976 the National Portrait Gallery began to collect
photographs, establishing some competition over photographic portraits with the
Photographic History Collection, which had already sponsored a major portrait
exhibition in 1969, for which portraits of famous subjects by Arnold Newman had
been collected. When the National Museum of American Art began to collect
photographs, at about the same time that the Museum of History and Technology
became the National Museum of American History, the role of Photographic History
as the primary forum for presenting photographic art at the Smithsonian
diminished. At the same time the unit's collections of non-American photographs,
such as European and Japanese examples, became irrelevant to the Museum's new
mandate to document American social and cultural history.
The
multiplicity of the photographic collections within the SI can easily be viewed
as a mystifying conglomeration of ideas, ideologies and images. However, this
multiplicity reflects both the diverse nature of the Smithsonian and the
multi-faceted nature of photography itself. This vast repertoire drives a
picture researcher down a multipart path. As an intriguing complex of museums
the SI will perhaps continue to become even a larger amalgamation; therefore it
is essential and challenging to find strategies to simplify and rationalize
access. Initially I thought that perhaps a consolidation of all the photographic
collections within the SI should be considered. But given the diversity of the
SI in the mandates and functions of the various units this does not seem a
realistic goal, although the assemblage could become a comprehensive survey of
photographic traditions and an important document of photographic process while
being recognized as among the greatest strengths of SI holdings.
Multiple
types of users want to access photographs within multiple repository schemes and
contexts. Photographs are collected and researched for two primary motives: (a)
Information (documentary, evidentiary, historical aspect), and (b) aesthetic and
entertainment value. But there are multiple documentary motives within some of
the same photographs. Within the SI there are many photo collections which are
administratively separate. Frequently there is overlap in collecting--the same
photograph can be of documentary value in different ways to different
repositories. The researcher can appreciate the rationales for separate
repositories within an institution, but in the final analysis needs to know how
to locate individual images, pertinent to a specific research imperative,
efficiently.
Access to images is hampered by:
Separate and non-integrated catalogs (including separate catalogs and
lists within the same repository)
Lack of knowledge of existence of partially hidden collections,
restrictions on research
proprietary attitudes (occasionally curators have actually
hidden photographs from
Conservation problems which deter access because researchers can't handle or view fragile photos
Confusing, poorly defined, and overlapping mission statements of repositories which the researcher
cannot decipher Repositories
which collect materials which don't fit their mission statements
Besides
curators are largely, but not exclusively, driven by the internal logic of their
collections. Repositories sometimes overrate or underrate the significance of
their own photographs. Files of surrogate and copy photographs confuse the user
about ownership rights. E.g., Curators from the Museum of Modern Art working on
their "Fame" exhibition wasted
time looking at the Political History file of copy photographs from the Library
of Congress while they sought to locate and borrow originals.
Sometimes
photographic "collections" are merely informational files documenting
artifacts in collections held by external repositories, analogous to published,
illustrated catalogs, despite their undisputed research value. At the opposite
extreme, repositories hold original photographs and don't realize their
significance, consigning rare or valuable images such as daguerreotypes to files
of reference images, intermixed with second-generation copy prints, undocumented
and effectively hidden. Smithsonian photographic collections began with the 1869
exhibition of the Native American Delegation. The portraits, nearly 400 images,
were displayed at the SI Gallery and were assembled from various sources and
acquired primarily for their anthropological content. Today about 39 are in the
Photographic History Collection, the rest remaining in NAA. Photographic images,
primarily in the form of conventional flat objects, represent easy storage, and
therefore easy access. However, albums and other unconventional forms and
formats often complicate both storage schemes and exhibition design. In larger
terms, inconvenient storage hampers access. The impending move of the entire
Anthropological Archives to an offsite location, for example, clearly
complicates access, making the collections unavailable during the relocation,
and inconveniencing staff and researchers afterward. Most research disciplines
eventually end up collecting photographs, in the form of both originals and
copies, a natural consequence of documenting a particular discipline; e.g.,
photographs in the mechanical and civil engineering collections. Also, in the
Photographic History Collections are objects that could logically be found in
other collections, depending on collecting emphasis. The textiles collection has
objects that include photographs, not to mention historic photographs
documenting textile production and costume history. Photographs on textiles and
on ceramic objects can be found in Photo History. To demonstrate the ubiquity of
photograph imagery and specific technologies, photographs decorating ceramic and
other three-dimensional objects were collected. I began by looking into the
methodologies, practice and policies for collections and acquisitions &
their presence in the diverse repositories.
It
soon became clear that access to images was hampered by:
1. The de-centralized nature of the SI and its emphasis on the individual
identity of museums and repositories.
2. The absence of a centralized, composite database
3. The idiosyncratic psychology and priorities of both curators and
researchers.
4. The movement of objects from one storage location to another; changing
locations meant change in contexts, greatly challenging institutional memory.
5.
Changes in administrative units and frequent re-organization, such as the
transfer of the Photographic History Collection from
the dept. of the History of
Science & Technology to the dept. of Social & Cultural History, and now
since 1994 its identity within the Div. of Information, Technology &
Society, reflecting a larger view that encompasses electronic imaging and
digital media.
In
collecting photography, the SI has followed a circuitous route: Photography was
initially a documentary tool, and then through complex changes is now collected
and interpreted for its own right; as document of social history, proof of
technical innovation, and later aesthetic values. Is there a holistic framework
for interpretative interactions that involves the scientific, aesthetic, and
cultural aspects of the collections? Because among other complexities inherent
in the presence of photography in the SI is its overlap with popular culture.
NMAH curator David Allison in the past has suggested that it would be possible
to integrate NMAH collections catalogued in the Multi-Mimsy system with those in
SIRIS through simultaneous cross-platform searching; this sounds good, but it is
not yet clear whether this is a realistic expectation or a technological dream.
The scale & heterogeneity of the SI collections provide a challenge for
ensuring ongoing access. The documentation process should not just be limited to
record and extraction of data immediately observed in the image, rather seek to
collect any information that places the image in context both before and after
its acquisition by a museum. Therefore perhaps it can be said that the
cataloguing process is never exactly finished. What must be added to this is the
record of the object's participation in exhibitions, publications, academic
research, interventions for restoration, and monitoring the state of
conservation.
The
publication of Diane Vogt-O'Connor's Guides to Photographs in the SI was an
ambitious project which resulted from years of discussion and planning for a
comprehensive guide to Smithsonian photographic collections. It sought to
integrate into one multi-volume publication a detailed overview of all types of
photographs housed in Smithsonian units. It identified separate repositories and
sought to provide contact information with staff names and phone numbers, a
feature which represented both a strength and a weakness, the latter because
there was no provision for keeping such contact information current. Published
in 1986-1987, it is already in need of major expansion and updating. The biggest
disappointment with the project was the failure to produce SIRIS database
entries corresponding to the "collection" descriptions in the
published volumes, as originally intended. The SIRIS entry aspect of the project
had to be abandoned because the software then in use made data entry slow and
cumbersome. Quite simply, each database field (in the MARC format) had to be
accessed and filled in individually; full-screen text editing was not yet
available. Now SIRIS uses the Horizon system, which operates within Windows,
enabling the cataloguer to directly enter data more rapidly, as well as to copy,
cut, and paste text from word processing documents and other SIRIS entries.
Users of the Smithsonian Libraries catalog are familiar with searching for books
and other library materials in the SIRIS Webpac, but many may not have noticed
that the accompanying Archives and Manuscripts database contains entries for
archival records at the collection-, series-, and item-level. The Archives
Center alone has contributed nearly 40,000 item-level records to this database,
which are available to researchers on the World Wide Web, anywhere in the world.
Unfortunately, as I have said, collection-level records corresponding to the
Vogt- O'Connor guide entries are not available on SIRIS. The guidebooks as they
stand contain certain other deficiencies and problems. Some sections and
descriptions are misleading because they don't clearly differentiate primary
photographic collections from research materials, interfiled in curatorial
reference file cabinets, as well as administrative and registrarial files
containing photographs of museum collection artifacts, and copies of photographs
from non-Smithsonian collections. There are sometimes problems of balance which
can confuse the users of the guides, as well as occasional inaccuracies which
may have resulted from misinterpretation of raw survey data. A notable omission
from the NMAH guide is any mention of the massive Science Service file of
photographs and press releases, which was acquired by NMAH in the 1960s and was
immediately dispersed among various curatorial units within NMAH and beyond,
largely because there was no logical repository equipped to contain and
administer the entire collection. Portions were distributed to the National
Portrait Gallery and NMNH, while a large component was split up among the
various NMAH curatorial units. Despite the enormous cultural and informational value of
these photographs, which document scientific and technological advances in a
great many disparate fields, they are not described in the Guide.
Some years ago, the Archives Center attempted to consolidate the Science
Service photographs and related publicity releases held by the various
curatorial units into one integrated collection, but eventually realized that
insufficient storage space made the attempt futile, and transferred the few
groups which it had already acquired to the Smithsonian Institution Archives.
If
the SI Archives' mandate is to collect records of the Institution's history per
se, these Science Service papers and photographs, representing the files of a
news service, seem somewhat out of place, thereby confusing the researcher.
Meanwhile, other Science Service materials remain distributed throughout
NMAH and elsewhere, largely uncatalogued, and accessible only in piecemeal
fashion. These photographs just a
few years ago were mined for a fascinating exhibition, "Science
Projects," displayed at both the International Center of Photography in New
York and at NMAH, reviving interest in this rich collection.
We
now have several new initiatives intended to improve access to photographs in
the SI. The SI Archives and Special Collections Council is sponsoring a
committee which is formulating generic standards for the description of
photographs which it is hoped will be adopted by both the archival units and
eventually in some form by curatorial units which collect photographs as
aesthetic artifacts. Standardized
description and format will go a long way toward improving intellectual access
to images, although enforcement and implementation are another story.
While photographs are scattered throughout the institution within a great
many administratively and physically separate locations, information about these
photographs is also to be found in physically and electronically separate
databases, including several integrated databases such as SIRIS, Multi-Mimsy,
and TMS, which nevertheless are not integrated with each other, as well as
stand-alone PC databases in Access, Filemaker Pro, and other programs, card
files, finding aids, and inventories, accessible only through personal on-site
visits by the researcher. The
researcher often has a daunting task locating the right database or card file,
not to mention the proper administrative or curatorial unit. Often a thorough acquaintance with the structure and internal
logic of the Smithsonian is required to locate the appropriate Smithsonian unit,
curator, archivist, database, or card file, requiring a study of the
Vogt-O'Connor guides, Research Opportunities bulletins, and even the Smithsonian
staff directory. Researchers often
report frustrating telephone encounters, frequent transfers from one unit to
another, before honing in on the knowledgeable staff member who can help them.
It has been said that those who do not receive such phone calls do not
recognize this situation or the magnitude of the problem.
Another
problem is that each repository emphasizes or records only its own basic layer
of information, which is intended to provide focused access to themselves and
users. However, this constitutes a somewhat myopic view.
For example, in art museums the first layer is the artist, usually
provided in an alphabetical listing. In
archives the first layer is general subject (break-down of fields of study).
Each repository has its own assessment of what layer is important.
To provide multiple-access potential, repositories should be encouraged
to supply additional layers of information about the photographs which will be
useful to other repositories and their audience. One solution to consider would
be a dictator to set directives or have various units get better acquainted with
their own and others' photographs.
My
ongoing personal research in photography, which I have used as a test case in
consulting Smithsonian and other collections involves, not surprisingly,
photographs of India. The
Smithsonian has many photographs made in India, including even a number in the
National Museum of American History (in the Archives Center's Underwood &
Underwood stereographs. The very
name of the museum tends to obscure the fact that this museum houses many
artifacts and photographs which have no particular relevance to American
history, and it might not occur to many researchers to inquire about
non-American materials there. It
seems rather curious that the very name of a museum should be allowed to conceal
its holdings.
Regarding
my research in India -
When
I first arrived in Washington in
March, I immediately went to the Sackler Gallery to view its exhibition of
Indian photographs, catching it just before its closing date.
The following slides were copied from the exhibition catalog.
At the Smithsonian I was delighted to find that wonderful Deen Dayal
photographs were in the collections of both the Sackler Gallery as well as in
the National Anthropological Archives. I wonder if anyone else is hiding Deen
Dayal photographs?
Smithsonian
collections are rich in materials pertinent to the history of photography within
obscure or less than obvious contexts. To
indicate the role of serendipity in research I include examples of references to
daguerreotypes in lithographs which illustrate 19th-century sheet music in the
Sam De Vincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, housed in the
NMAH Archives Center. E.g.
1.
A lithograph illustrating a song popularized by the "Gibson
Troupe". The imprint under the
illustration identifies it as being "from a daguerreotypes by Lovering
& Davis." This sheet music
was published in 1843!
2.
A lithographic cover for a song used by a group called the Harmoneons.
It is based on a daguerreotype by Litch & Wipple [sic] and was
published in 1846 showing the daguerreotypist credit.
Even
if the original daguerreotypes are no longer extant, or perhaps especially if
they're not, these illustrations provide evidence of their existence.
These slides correlate with an ongoing methodology of the Archives
Center, to provide item-level access to images in a selective, usage-driven
manner. The creation of these
slides for this talk occasioned the production of database records to document
the images. Due to the magnitude of
the De Vincent Collection, there may never be a full item-level catalogue of
these song sheets, yet the new database records will ensure that these pictures
and information about them will be accessible after this presentation is just a
faded memory for those of you assembled here.
Earlier this week these images were located and photographed, their SIRIS
records created, and were immediately accessible on the World Wide Web.
These contain descriptions of the sheet music and lithographs, their
derivation from daguerreotypes, and their location within the De Vincent
Collection. Later, electronic image
files will be linked to the records and will be displayed with them in the
Webpac. The DeVincent Collection
archival finding aid with its group-level container list will also be accessible
on the Archives Center's web pages, but it cannot list such materials at the
item level.
The
SIRIS item-level records are selective, but they enhance access to items of
particular interest as researchers identify them. The records, constituting a tiny fraction of the De Vincent
Collection, protect the time invested by the original researcher so that they
can be accessed by others. This
usage-driven method of selective cataloguing ensures a gradually increasing
fount of item-level information, even for archives which normally cannot
catalogue individual images due to the magnitude of their holdings, and seems
like a useful model. It requires
the establishment of a careful routine and follow-through, but it will pay
dividends to researchers who can be alerted to the potential for further
serendipity, and will save staff time in retrieving items previously selected
for reproduction or exhibition. Despite
the zeal to maintain and protect contextual information, images are, after all,
experienced individually.
In
1984 there was serious discussion about incorporating the George Eastman House
collection into NMAH--which would have been a third major photo collection
within the same museum--what impact would that have had? The plan was to keep the Eastman House collections separate
from the existing NMAH photographic collections.
How much confusion would that have generated? As tempting as it might be to have all SI collections
consolidated within one repository, this is unlikely to happen cause need a new
building & that might force. The
SI approach to photos is going to remain complex, reflecting the complexity of
the collections, the SI itself, and the needs of users. But it would be
a good idea to hold the line in establishing new repositories.
One
suggestion for providing an overview of Smithsonian photographic collections in
a Web site dedicated to photography in the SI. It would be a knowledge-sharing
initiative with item-level descriptions, ideally identifying overlaps within the
SI and institutions like the Library of Congress. It would include as many digitized images as possible, also
photographs in albums & books. It
should have standard subject terms, cross-references, and links to other SI
sites.
Before
I conclude I wish to thank the those I interacted with at the Smithsonian,
specially at the National Museum of American History for all their unstinted
assistance. My special indebted gratitude to Nancy Fuller at the Center for
Museum Studies for all her support and to David Haberstich, Archives Center,
NMAH who made so much possible and with whose guidance and encouragement I could
do so much more.
Thank
you.
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