Post on 11-Dec-2015
Gerald ChaudronProcessing Archivist
Manuscripts Division, Special Collections Department,Mississippi State University Libraries
Society of Mississippi Archivists conference, Cleveland, April 18, 2013
Visual Literacy and Archivists: How much metadata is enough?
Visual Image Metadata Description: Miss Hospitality contest,
Governor and Mrs. Hugh White at Buena Vista Hotel shrimp feast
Location: Gulfport (Miss.) Date: 1952 Digital ID: 91-1118C.jpeg Collection: Rand (Clayton) papers Format (original): 1 photograph: b&w Format (digital): JPEG Subjects: Miss Hospitality (Beauty
Contest: Biloxi, Miss.)—Photographs; Buena Vista Hotel (Biloxi, Miss.)—Photographs; African Americans—Biloxi, Miss.—Photographs; White, Hugh L. (Hugh Lawson), 1881-1965—Photographs; Dixie Guide (Newspaper: Gulfport, Miss.)
Location of original: Box 30/Photographs/July 1952
Repository and copyright informationGovernor and Mrs. Hugh White at Buena Vista Hotel shrimp feast.
How much metadata is enough?
Does the archivist only supply what the creator/collector provided or do we have to find more descriptive information about the image?
What do users want and can we cater to all of them?
Where does the archivist’s role in creating metadata end and the user’s role as researcher begin?
Coming to terms with
photographs
Visual Archives in
Perspective
Mind and Sight:
Visual Literacy
and the Archivist
Reading and Researching Photographs
Digitization and the Living
Death of Photographs
Visual literacy:Visual literacy:a definitiona definition
Visual literacy is a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media.ACRL Visual Literacy Standardshttp://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy
Archivists’ actions impact meaning
Physical separation of images from collections
Digitization of images
IsolationMisinterpretationDistortion
A picture may be worth a thousand words but some of those words could be wrong!
Orie (left) and William Fugate, Hedges Station, Kentucky, August 7, 1916. www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ncl2004004723/PP
Visual literacy: Kaplan and Mifflin
3 Levels of Awareness:
1. Superficial - what’s the picture of?
2. Concrete - what’s it about?
3. Abstract - what’s the context? What did the creator intend to evoke in his/her audience?
Visual literacy: Kaplan and Mifflin
http://digital.library.msstate.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/charm/id/24267
Basic MetadataCollection: Mississippi Homemakers Extension records. MSS.373Location: Guntown (Miss.)Date: 1956Digital ID: 373_Scrapbookp 11-1Medium: Black & white photographic printDimensions: 20.6 x 25.3 cm
Superficial level descriptionTwo men with a herd of cows.
Visual literacy: Kaplan and Mifflin
http://digital.library.msstate.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/charm/id/24267
Concrete level
Roy Beene (left) of Guntown, Miss., showing his herd of purebred Jersey cattle to state extension leader W.E. Ammons.
Visual literacy: Kaplan and Mifflin
Abstract levelWith dairy cattle, Mississippi 4-H club boys and girls are helping to get their parents out of one-crop cotton farming. Roy Beene (left) of Guntown, Miss., is showing his herd of purebred Jersey cattle to state extension leader W.E. Ammons. Roy is milking his two grown cows and getting 8-10 gallons of milk a day. He started out with one cow.
http://digital.library.msstate.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/charm/id/24267
Are archivists visually literate?
Wrong questionBetter question: Why are archivists not creating detailed descriptive
metadata for every image?Answers: Images and their collections don’t always provide the
information Archivists don’t have the resources to research every
image in their collections The role of the archivist is to preserve and provide access
to collections; the role of the user to research those collections
What descriptive metadata do users want?
African-Americans waiting near Lampkin Street in Starkville, Mississippi, for the train that will take the body of Letha Gilliam Wier, second wife of Robert Wier, to her home town of Clarksdale, Mississippi. Letha G. Wier was a home demonstration agent for Oktibbeha County and died suddenly on January 9, 1923. Photograph was taken near the train depot and just off Lampkin Street and shows a partial view of the Blumenfeld and Fried wholesale grocery warehouse, as well as neighborhood houses in the background.
http://digital.library.msstate.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/charm/id/24369
Answer:We don’t reallyknow!
The archivist as detective
Depends on information provided by:itemcollection research (if possible)To enhance metadata:process images lastgroup like formats and same shootslook for relationships between images, e.g. locations, buildings, vehicles, people
Know your history
• Daguerreotype: 1839 - ca. 1860• Ambrotype: 1851- 1880s• Tintype: 1858 - 1910s• Glass Negatives: 1851 - 1920s• Salt Prints: 1839 - ca. 1860• Crayon Portraits: 1840 - 1915• Cyanotypes: 1840 - 1915• Albumen Prints: 1850 - ca. 1890• Stereoview: 1851 - 1940• Lantern Slides: 1860s - 1930s• Nitrocellulose Film: 1889 - 1939• Safety Film: 1934 - present• Polyester: 1965 - present• Digital: 1991 - present
Metadata aids: FormatPhotographer information
Cartes des visite Cabinet card
Hightower, Montgomery, Perkins, Castles and Stiles papers. MSS.537
Metadata aids: FormatPhotographer information
Hightower, Montgomery, Perkins, Castles and Stiles papers. MSS.537
Metadata aids: FormatProcessor information
Hightower, Montgomery, Perkins, Castles and Stiles papers. MSS.537
• processor location • processing date
• processing numbers
Metadata aids: Costume and background
Hightower, Montgomery, Perkins, Castles and Stiles papers. MSS.537
Metadata aids: Costume and background
Hightower, Montgomery, Perkins, Castles and Stiles papers. MSS.537
Finding a missing piece of descriptive metadata
U.S. Steamer Baltic, Mississippi Marine Brigade, Vicksburg, Miss., circa 1864.Charles Johnson Faulk papers. MSS.514.
Vicksburg, Miss. Levee and steamboats, 1864 February. Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cwpb.01011/
Putting the metadata pieces together
Hightower, Montgomery, Perkins, Castles, and Stiles families papers. MSS.537
Combining format and description information can create more complete descriptive metadata
Unknown young woman, undated. Dorothy Perkins (right), John M. Perkins (center) and Meta Hightower, Starkville, Miss., circa 1927.
How much metadata is enough?
Identification number, e.g. 543-1, 543-N-2
Description Location Photographer Date, e.g. 1915, 1915-03,
1915-03-05, circa 1915, 1915?
Format, e.g. photograph (photoprint), contact print
Format color
Dimensions Primary support, e.g. paper,
metal, glass Secondary support Number of copies Condition, e.g. tears,
creases, foxing, stains, text, fragile
Collection number Collection name Container Comments
Research enhances descriptive metadata
W.A. Love (rear, 4th right) and United Confederate Veterans group, Arlington House, Virginia, 1917 June 4.Drennan Love family collection.MSS.543
Visual literacy and metadata
Archivistsdeal in factsmake conclusions based on those factsshould not interpret, suggest intent(sorry Sherlock)
Users (may)interpretspeculate
Visual Literacy and Archivists: How much metadata is enough?Sources: • Joan M. Schwartz (1995), “We Make Our Tools and Our Tools Make Us”: Lessons
from Photographs for the Practice, Politics, and Poetics of Diplomatics, Archivaria, 40
• Elizabeth Kaplan and Jeffrey Mifflin (2000), ‘Mind and Sight’: Visual Literacy and the Archivist, In American Archival Studies: Readings in Theory and Practice, ed. Randall C. Jimerson, Chicago: Society of American Archivists.
• Joan M. Schwartz (2002), Coming to Terms with Photographs: Descriptive Standards, Linguistic “Othering”, and the Margins of Archivy, Archivaria, 54
• Joan E. Beaudoin(2007), Visual Materials and Online Access: Issues Concerning Content Representation, Art Documentation, 26 (2)
• Tim Schlak (2008), Framing Photographs, Denying Archives: The Difficulty of Focusing on Archival Photographs, Archival Science, 8 (2)
• Margot Note (2011), Managing Image Collections: A Practical Guide, Oxford: Chandos Publishing.
• Paul Conway and Ricardo Punzalan (2011), Fields of Vision: Toward a New Theory of Visual Literacy for Digitized Archival Photographs, Archivaria, 71.