Contemplating Photography

 (ww.getty.edu/research/conductin_research/vocabularies/)

1. What is art and material culture?

- material culture refers to the broader realm of physicals objects produced by a culture

- cultural heritage – activities and the artifacts of activities that are a record of the life of a culture.

- many benefits of making art and material culture info available, including preserving the complexities and quality of cultural information for the use of future generations while making it accessible to people today.

- Images need the benefit of words, contextual information, otherwise it is “silent”, cannot tell the complete story

- Need contextual information to be fully appreciated.

- only when documented and interpreted can it tell the story

- Intellectual links (e.g. people, places etc) exist in art and material cultre and are made explicit in the analysis and recording of info.

- the role of documentation professions: organizing and managing information – this is essential in providing interpretation, analysis, and access to art and material culture.

Art and Material Culture Information: Ten Points

- making information available about art helps to encourage exploration by identifying universal themes, explaining contexts, and realing little-known facts.

- information about material culture provides context and interpretation necessary to “tell a story”. Makes factual information more meaninful and accessible.
- new internatioal audeiences

- Focusing on an “act of creation” : a work of art and the context of its creation form the core of art and material culture information

- primary reason for recording information about art is to document importan objects in order to protect and care for them

- also combined with additional research and related information in order to educate and entertain. raising central issues: intellectual property rights, historical accuracy, and multicultural points of view.

- Having a Point of View: the way material culture info is presented will reflect a particular point of view.

- full story of art and material culture is best told using words and pictures, not numbers.

- complexity of information presents a challenge to creating access

2. Documentation: Analyzing and Recording Information

- Documentation includes analyzing, organizing, and recording information in order to provide access to cultural heritage resources.

- dependent upon the holders of the information and the information itself

- 4 major approaches to documentation of material culture: archival, library, museum, and visual resources.

- there is a re-examining of these traditional practices in an attempt to deal with the digitization and networked access to materials.

The Archival Approach

- the arrangement and description of records, personal papers, and manuscripts.

- emphasizes the function and provenance of archival materials

- documents, images, artifacts etc.

- based on the creation of a finding aid – document that lists or describes a body of records w/in an archive, providing access to the user.

- describes collections, series and groups of related materials – instead of individual items

- based on well-established standards (MARC, RAD, APPM, EAD)

- includes methodologies

- based on the concept htat the collection “in hand” is unique material

- uses controlled vocabularies

- moving towards data-sharing initiatives – need for global access to unique and primary research material.

The Library Approach

- involves the cataloging and classification of books and other published textual materials. (bibliographic cataloging and classification)

- based on the concept that the item is one of many of the same things – data-sharing is seen as economically advantageous, copy cataloging is cheaper than original cataloging)

- guided by principles from national leader institutions (LOC)

- taught in schools of library and information science – curriculum: controlled vocabularies, authority practice, and subject analysis

- high value on subject access

- long-standing tradition of data sharing (OCLC)

- based on well-established standards: MARC format and AACR2

- authority work and controlled vocabularies (LCSH – most prevalent)

- computerized in the 1970s: public access to cataloged materials

- item-level cataloging (record is created for each item, not collection)

The Museum Approach

- involves the documentation of museum objects (works of art, artifacts, and specimens)

- complex, incoporating diverse topics of information about an object (physical description, provenance, conservation, photographic documentation and research data)

- item “in hand” is unique

- increase in data-sharing initiatives in the last several years (CHIN national inventories, 1972)

- uses classification schemes often based on departmental divisions

- incorporates images as well as textual data

- beginning to adopt authority control as basic practice

- gained importance as a valuable resource – re-purposed for public information systems – presenting info about collections to the public thru the internet.

- uses collection management systems that are geared to internal users (curators, registrar etc.) (K-EMU)

- uses diverse sources for terminology (ULAN, AAT, TGN and local lists)

- beginning to adopt standards such as CDWA

Visual Resources Approach

- provides access to images that enrich the ducation experience – many VR collections are in a university environment

- single items and set of images – complex levels of description – both item in hand and the content of the image

- working towards adoption of data standards (“Core Categories for Visual Resources” and MARC)

- vocab: AAT, ULAN, TGN and local lists

- places high value on subject access

- close ties with the museum documentation tradition in the description of iimages of museum objects

Vocabularies are the bridge

- vocabularies offer a common ground for different approaches – bring together resources

1. vocabularies being used are independent of systems, applications, and media

2. Vocabularies are structure to provide links between terms and concepts – creates an intellectual path