gerald chaudron processing archivist manuscripts division, special collections department,...

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

Governor and Mrs. Hugh White at Buena Vista Hotel shrimp feast.

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?


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.



Concrete level

Roy Beene (left) of Guntown, Miss., showing his herd of purebred Jersey cattle to state extension leader W.E. Ammons.


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.


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.


Answer:We don’t reallyknow!


It depends!

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: Format

Metadata aids: FormatPhotographer information

Cartes des visite Cabinet card

Hightower, Montgomery, Perkins, Castles and Stiles papers. MSS.537

Metadata aids: FormatPhotographer information


Metadata aids: FormatProcessor information


• processor location • processing date

• processing numbers

Metadata aids: Costume and background

Rufus Ward collection.MSS.73

Metadata aids: Costume and background


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.


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.

Visual Literacy and Archivists: How much metadata is enough?

Gerald Chaudron PhD, CA

Assistant Professor, ManuscriptsSpecial Collections Department

Mississippi State University LibrariesP.O. Box 5408

Mississippi State, MS 39762662-325-3071

[email protected]

gerald chaudron processing archivist manuscripts division, special collections department,...

Documents

definition visual literacy

photographs visual archives

visual media

visual image metadata

photographs white

hugh white

photographs digitization

mifflin http