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Re: Photograph Cataloging?



Many, many archives actually "catalog" their photographs at both the item level and the collection level. In general, archives have been moving to collection level cataloging of photographs in the last 15 to 20 years. There was a MARC format especially for photographs, called MARC-VM, there is a compendium of pracrice for its use, based on photograph cataloging practuces at over a dozen archives:

ACCESSION: 18621367
AUTHOR: Evans, Linda J.
TITLE: MARC for archival visual materials : a compendium of practice
PLACE: [Chicago, Ill.] :
PUBLISHER: Chicago Historical Society,
YEAR: 1988
PUB TYPE: Book
FORMAT: 1 v. (loose-leaf) ; 30 cm.
ISBN: 091382013X
SUBJECT: MARC formats -- United States. Cataloging of archival material -- Data processing. Cataloging of audio-visual materials -- United States -- Data processing. Cataloging of nonbook materials -- United States -- Data processing. Cataloging of graphic materials -- Data processing.
OTHER: Will, Maureen O'Brien.

You will also find records for photographs at both collection level and item level in OCLC and RLIN, and even many OPACS.

There are even item level records for photographs in OCLC's CORC (OCLC's cooperative online resource cataloging project) database, for digitized photographs from the Denver Public Library. http://corc.oclc.org/ try doing a search on creek, and see what you get! Records in CORC can be viewed in either Dublin Core or MARC format.

LC's Prints & Photos has been cataloging photographs into a number of systems using MARC for many years, and there is an LC Theasaurus for Graphic Materials, commonly referred to as LCTGM. You can look at their catalog on the WEB at http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html .

There are many digitizing projects putting cataloged photographs on the Web, like LC's American Memory, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ OR Duke's Digital Scriptorium http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/scriptorium/

Basically , there is a huge volume of work done on cataloging archival photographs, with many resources for you to turn to; perhaps you misunderstood your professor??

Regards,
Debra.




I'm a graduate student at the University of Illinois in Library and
Information Sciences concentrating on archives and I'm doing a research
project on whether or not archives, museums, historical societies, etc. are
actually "cataloging" their original photographs. My cataloging professor is
convinced that archivists just shove their photographs in a box.....????????

Considering how inadequate MARK and the AACR2 rules are for photographs, I was
wondering what, if anything, is being used to catalog those photographs, and
what types of fields/subfields are being used? What information is absolutely
essential to creating a usable catalog record? Do you research the photograph
so that more information can be provided like names of people, places, events,
etc.?

If anyone can provide me with alternative cataloging system such as software
packages, etc. or websites (like the Library of Congress' American Memories),
I would be eternally grateful.

Thank you.
Donna Schaal

You can contact me off list at schaal@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu

dshapiro@slis.wisc.edu
Debra Shapiro
Continuting Education Services
UW-Madison SLIS
4282 Helen C. White Hall
Madison WI 53706
608 262 9195