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Re: Photograph archivist vs. photograph curator



I've recently been involved in a few efforts to develop collaboration
between libraries, archives, and museums, so I've actually been thinking a
bit about the difference between what distinguishes those institutions.

For me, the key is to consider how the individual manages the holdings.
Archivists respect provenance and original order, they describe collections
hierarchically, and they are very concerned about preserving the context of
the materials.  Not to discount the preservation work of librarians and
museum professionals--and much to my surprise--when talking to groups of
these folks, they tend to look at archivists as leaders in preservation.

Museum professionals tend to work with discrete items, and they tend to look
for objects that are unique in some way (even mass produced objects are
selected as best of a class, and one among many will be selected for its
condition).  Because the items are collected individually, the context of
original order is not applicable; however, curators tend to research and
document the object and its context based on their professional expertise.
The cultural resources communities often look to museums for the excellent
outreach/education/interpretation programs.

Librarians tend to promote access over preservation; they can always buy
another copy of the work, and to some extent theft/wearing out helps weed a
collection.  (Obviously, I'm not talking about rare book libraries.)
Librarians sort books into an artificial order and consider in inappropriate
for catalogers to include any interpretation in the catalog record.

So, what's the difference between a photographic curator and archivist?  I
suspect that a lot of people are called photo archivists because they
collect old, rare stuff that's not books and not objects.

I've had both titles, although I did the same kinds of work.  Regardless of
the title, I consider myself an archivists because of the approach I took to
managing the materials.  I would argue based on many of the photographic
"archives" that I've visited, that many are really photo libraries or photo
museums because they don't manage the materials with respect to provenance
or original order, and they rely on item-level description as their first
level of control.



Richard Pearce-Moses

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