College and Research Libraries J By E L E A N O R M I T C H E L L The Photograph Collection and its Problems Miss Mitchell is assisting in the organiza- tion of the Biblioteca del Estado de Jalisco at Guadalajara, Mexico. This paper was presented January 29, 1941, at a meeting of the College Art Association held at the University of Chicago. Need for a Broad Viewpoint TH E A C Q U I S I T I O N , care, and arrange-ment of the photograph and slide col- lection has developed into a formidable science, demanding of its administering custodian enduring patience, long-range perspective, and clear thinking. T o o often photograph curators become so engulfed in detail that they lose sight of their true function in the educational scheme of their college or university art departments or in their museum. W i t h them rests the responsibility of making readily available to faculty, students, curators, and laymen a collection of visual material of widely diversified subject matter. A n objective approach and the use of the simplest pro- cedures of custodianship should be a con- stant goal. In the past, interest has been directed toward the acquisition and care of the photograph and slide collection, problems which have been well summarized by the late Elizabeth M . Fisher of the Ryerson A r t Library of the Chicago A r t Institute in her excellent discussion of " T h e Fine Arts Picture Collection" in the Library Journal for October 15, 1939. Less atten- tion has been given to the formulation of a code for curators. T h e following re- marks, based on a survey of fourteen representative photograph collections in colleges, universities, and museums, sug- gest the bewildering number of methods in use in our institutions. A careful study of these variations emphasizes the desira- bility of further comparison and analysis leading toward the publication of a hand- book which might be useful in the organ- ization of the photograph collection. There is a tendency among guardians of these collections to consider the material in their charge overprecious. Rules should be made sparingly with service ever kept in mind. For example, college and uni- versity departments might consider a broader loan policy of photographic ma- terial. In some institutions photographs not on reserve for specific courses are loaned to students for a period of a week, with a fine of one cent a day for late return. W o u l d it not be well to risk occasional damage to photographs, if in doing so, material were made more accessi- ble to interested students? Although newly-acquired photographs are invari- ably brought to the attention of the pro- fessor or staff member concerned with the subject, others may be given an idea of the expanding collection by frequently-changed exhibits of current additions. 176 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES Housing the Collection O f the fourteen institutions under con- sideration all but three house their exten- sive photograph collections in vertical files. T h e two types in use are files of drawers and, more frequently, cabinets made up of many compartments with a drop front for each tier. It is surprising that more insti- tutions have not resorted to the compart- ment file which requires the least physical exertion of any of the systems. T h i s setup was illustrated by photograph and diagram as early as 1911 in the publication of the Metropolitan Museum of A r t concerned with Classification Systems in Use in the Library. T h e three institutions which do not use vertical files, house their material in boxes, a method which is being adopted by the National Gallery of A r t in Wash- ington. T h e use of boxes seems to be more popular in large institutions where files are not open to the public and are likely to be farther from the study room. Here untrained attendants produce on request material called for by classification number or subject, in contrast to the trained cura- tors or art-minded students in charge of the average college or university collection. The Card Catalog—Special Indexes T h e question of a card index to the col- lection should be decided only after con- sidering the cost of preparation in time, labor, and materials in relation to the projected use to which such a catalog would be put. In the small college or university with a limited art enrolment and few or no graduate students, there is scarcely a need for a catalog of the collec- tion. But in the larger university, with emphasis on graduate study or in the museum dealing with a varied public, a catalog is highly desirable and insures the tracing of every iconographic detail. Whether or not a catalog is planned every collection should have an authority file of place and personal names. Other special indexes may prove valuable in lieu of a catalog: an index of colored reproductions, an index of architects when architecture is filed under period or country and city, or an index of portraits where painting and sculpture are filed by artist. T h e pres- ence of a catalog reduces in one sense the worries of the classifier. If a photograph of an object may logically be filed in any one of three places, the classifier may de- cide upon one and make subject cards for all three to prevent the photograph's being "lost" to the public. For example the reproduction of a jeweled book cover may be readily produced whether the inquirer is interested in metal-work, gems, or book arts. Classification Curators charged with the responsibility of the photograph collection with one ac- cord pass by the minor issues raised by acquisition, accession, mounting, and hous- ing, to the absorbing task of arrangement or classification. T h e libraries of our country are, for the most part, taken care of adequately by two systems of classifica- tion, the Dewey Decimal and the Library of Congress. A survey of the fourteen representative classification schemes for photograph collections is discouraging in that it reveals no standardization. W h i l e no two systems of notation are exactly alike, several are based on the original Metropolitan Museum of A r t plan. Each new curator who comes along scans the existing systems, is confounded, extracts some features from one classification, some from another, and adds a new scheme which increases the confusion. It may be MARCH, 1942 16 7 too late to bring order out of the present chaos, but perhaps something can be done to formulate a guide or code for those yet unborn collections. Whether the curator is fond of the A . B . C . ' s or "plays the numbers," that these are merely arbitrary symbols to designate classification and so are relatively unimportant in comparison to logical arrangement of material, must be remem- bered. Since all of these institutions, how- ever, college, university, or museum, have photograph collections composed, on the whole, of the same type of subject matter, can it be the use to which the collection is put in these institutions that causes the variety in classification ? T h e photograph and slide collection of the college and uni- versity art department is drawn upon to visualize the history of art course, vary- ingly concerned with subject, period, or country, such as the history of the por- trait, medieval art, or French painting. Is the function of the museum collection so completely at variance with this concept? It must be able to supply the curator of sculpture with material for his scholarly report on the newly-acquired Gothic statue of the Virgin, the textile designer for in- spiration in creating new fabrics, or the schoolteacher with a series of historic cas- tles. Discrepancy in Classification Some of the discrepancy in classification notation has undoubtedly been brought about by professors and museum curators who, though scholars and specialists in their fields, are not library-detail-minded and are apt to think only in terms of their own courses or subjects, rather than of the photograph collection as a whole. Photo- graph curators have sometimes admitted that they arrange their material to suit the needs, or rather the wishes, of their faculty and staff, perhaps not giving due considera- tion to the fact that in five years another set of scholars with different fields of in- terest may be on hand to request a re- arrangement of material. T h e intrusion of personal interests and prejudices is ap- parently hard to avoid but should be guarded against. In this survey of classification schemes it has been observed that the favored plan is a primary division of the collection by subject, such as architecture, sculpture, painting, and the various minor arts. Under subject arrangement the general order is by period, country, and then alpha- betically by city or artist. Museums tend to one or two period subdivisions, as do several colleges and universities. Some universities, however, have as many as five or more time or culture subdivisions. T h e two-period division is that most frequently encountered and to the librarian-curator, accustomed to classifying books by subject, is likely to suggest itself as a more simple and logical arrangement. Here the men- tal process is Ancient Architecture—Greek or Roman; Modern Architecture—Eng- lish, French, or German. Modern is here thought of varyingly as the beginning of the Christian era or 600 A.D. O n the other hand the curriculum-minded college or university curator may be far more period-conscious and insist on medieval French architecture as being more closely allied to English and German medieval architecture than to French architecture as a whole. In other words, he is less nationality bound, which may be perfectly consistent with the international nature of the medieval period, but it still makes difficult the classifying of a photograph of a building which is the work of medieval, renaissance, and modern craftsmen. 178 C O L L E G E , AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES New York University's System N e w Y o r k University has departed from the usual division of material by sub- ject in organizing its collection: first by large culture circles, such as ancient cul- tures of the Mediterranean ( A ) ; second, by smaller culture circles as, for example, Greece and Rome ( O ) ; third, by medium (20000—sculpture) ; fourth, by country ( 1 0 0 — G r e e c e ) ; fifth, by style or histori- cal time period (4—Hellenistic). T h e re- sulting call number would be A O 20104. Similarly: B C Europe Medieval-Baroque 20405 Sculpture Italy X V century 270 Donatello Here the sixth subdivision (270) is a numerical symbol to indicate alphabetical arrangement according to artist. In other instances it might refer to place or iconog- raphy. Opinions differ as to the necessity of planning the university photograph or slide classification around the courses con- ducted. Some institutions go so far as to have groups of photographs for each course filed separately. Since the same photo- graph may be used at different times during the year by different professors, a common file of material with a share-the- wealth program would eliminate the ne- cessity of duplicates. Lists of photographs used for a course could be kept from one year to another as a basic group for future study. Whether the emphasis of the clas- sification is on subject, period, or style, the imaginative professor will draw upon material from varying groups of classifica- tion subdivisions. A n y classification scheme becomes of necessity complicated. It is likely that professor or layman in using the collection must be inducted into the mysteries of local arrangement and can be trained to use one system as well as another, with preference always for any simplification possible. T w o of the college and university systems studied having no catalogs, eliminate entirely any classifica- tion symbols although each follows a defi- nite plan of filing according to subject and multiperiod division. Emphasize Alphabet and Number It has been indicated that some classi- fications emphasize the alphabetical symbol and some the number. Actually all but two of the schemes under consideration use a mixed notation, these two being en- tirely numerical. In the three institutions which use a letter as the first symbol, the letter does not, however, have the same signification. A t N e w Y o r k University, as noted above, the letter indicates a cul- ture circle. In the department of fine arts at the University of Pittsburgh, the photo- graph collection, which is adjacent to a library classified according to the Library of Congress scheme, uses corresponding symbols as far as L . C . goes and then em- ploys other letters for additional subjects. T h e third institution in this category, the Ryerson Library, is the most consistent in its use of the alphabet for here A stands for architecture, B for biography, C for customs and manners, etc. Here also, ex- cept in the ancient division, country is indicated by its first letter or letters as are further subdivisions. T h e Cutter tables, so sacred to librar- ians in their arrangement of personal and place names, have at N e w Y o r k Univer- sity not been used in order to avoid any possible confusion in filing photographs or slides of monuments located at one site but dating from different periods. In the letter and number combinations on the MARCH, 1942 16 7 telephone dial, the library of the Museum of Modern A r t has found a workable sub- stitute for the Cutter tables. Problems in Classification T o discuss here the innumerable prob- lems which confront the classifier would be impossible, but a few which have sug- gested themselves in this study may be mentioned. It may be well to admit that in many instances there is no right or wrong answer. Anonymous and Attributed Works. T h e filing of anonymous painting and sculpture has on occasion presented itself as a problem. Varyingly it may be found at the beginning or at the end of the whole subject, arranged according to century, school, or place. T h e Fogg Museum of A r t system differs in that an anonymous Italian painting of the fifteenth century would be arbitrarily placed in the alpha- betical arrangement of artists under the word Italy. T h e symbol here would be I t i 15. A t the University of Pittsburgh where painting and sculpture are separated into ancient, medieval, and renaissance- modern categories, anonymous works of the renaissance, if medieval in spirit, are apt to be classed under the medieval period. In some collections, works of uncertain attribution, copies, school pieces, etc., are interfiled with the original works of an artist and are sometimes filed according to degree of attribution at the end of the group of authenticated works. In the case of questioned attributions where there are duplicate photographs or slides, some in- stitutions file duplicates under the various attributions. Likewise with two photo- graphs of a mural painting, one might be filed under the subject of mural painting, the other with the easel works of an artist under painting. In the case of architec- tural sculpture, one photograph might be placed with architecture, a duplicate with sculpture. Some curators may prefer all photographs of one specific object in one place in the file with cross references under other possible locations. Drawings and Prints. Curators have apparently been disturbed as to the classi- fying of drawings and prints. Most frequently drawings are found as a subdivi- sion of painting and occasionally prints are also classed here. Actually it seems quite logical to juxtapose these three forms of the artist's graphic expression, using some symbol to group together the works in any one medium. In more cases than not, prints are classed as a generic group which may be more practical in institutions where a course in the subject is given. D r a w - ings are also in some schemes thought of as being in a class by themselves. Some- times the division is called graphic arts and both drawings and prints are included. Manuscripts. Manuscripts are for the most part thought of as belonging to that bewildering miscellanea known as the minor arts, but occasionally one finds them grouped under painting with some dis- tinguishing symbol to place them apart. In institutions which have an extensive collection they may be treated as a distinct class. T h e classification of any movable object primarily according to place is the separation of material according to a variable factor which has no significance in the history of art. In theory, place con- trol may not be a logical subdivision of media but it may be the most practical solution in certain cases. A report from one of the curators concerned with manu- scripts at the Morgan Library, indicates that, although manuscripts may be thought of by country and century, arrangement 180 C O L L E G E , AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES by library may be simpler, inasmuch as school and century attribution in the medieval period is so uncertain. T h i s sys- tem is reasonable in v i e w of the fact that most sound and scholarly publications in discussing manuscripts invariably mention their location and number, many being k n o w n only by library number. H e r e is another case where the special index is important, in the event that no general card catalog exists. Minor Arts. T h e problem of the minor arts is undoubtedly the most confusing of all to the curator. A summary of various current practices in the collections sur- veyed shows that w i t h only one exception the primary division of the general class of minor arts is by medium, such as works in mineral, metal-work, wood, textiles, etc. T h e f o l l o w i n g tabulation indicates three possible divisions under medium, the first being that most frequently encoun- tered : I. II. I I I . Metalwork Metalwork Metalwork Italy Italy 16th century Bronze 16th century Italy 16th century Bronze Bronze Still another idea is presented at the U n i - versity of Pittsburgh which divides the minor arts, considered as one w h o l e class, into time and culture periods before any other subdivision. H e r e all ancient minor arts are together, as are all those of the medieval, renaissance-modern periods and M o h a m m e d a n and Oriental cultures. T h e s e general subdivisions under the minor arts are difficult to decide upon. In a sense one system may work out as satis- factorily as another. Disregarding the intrusion of personal prejudice, the pref- erential arrangement may have been regulated by convenience. T h e further breaking-up of a class of material provides even more serious complications. F o r in- stance, if American pottery is classed to- gether, is it the fact that the reproduced object is R o o k w o o d ware, that it w a s made in the nineteenth century, that it is in the Chicago A r t Institute collection, or that it is a plate rather than a bowl, w h i c h should take precedence? T h i s is a subject w h i c h needs much consideration. In making public their classification schemes institu- tions should give much more complete in- formation as to actual detailed practices. Theory of Arrangement It may be repeated that, whether w e are thinking of the minor arts or the collection as a whole, it does not seem possible to say that one system of arrangement is right, another w r o n g . In a small collection of a f e w thousand photographs and slides the medievalist may be made happy by placing all medieval arts in one drawer, box, or group of compartments. T h e curator of so small a collection has comparatively f e w worries. B u t w h e n one thinks of a collec- tion of t w e n t y thousand photographs, sixty thousand, one hundred thousand, or more, ever expanding, then more discrimination, keener judgment in classification must be applied. T h e thought must be not the mere massing of groups of like material together, but the problem of extracting one photograph from one hundred thousand. H o w often does the professor or museum curator, whether specialist in medieval, Oriental, or modern fields, come to the collection w i t h the idea of just any photo- graph of medieval architecture or minor arts, Oriental painting or modern indus- trial design? H e is more apt to w a n t a French Romanesque church and have Moissac in mind, or to think of an Italian, thirteenth-century crozier in the U f f i z i . MARCH, 1942 181 T h e orientalist is likely to be concerned with a Sung scroll in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the man of today may want a streamlined refrigerator and know there is a good American one designed by Norman Bel Geddes. T h a t classification should be a tool and not an end in itself cannot be reiterated too often. Although consistency in the pat- tern of classification from the general to the specific is desirable, success of the scheme should not be judged by the ability to follow completely the broad division of categories in the individual and minute problems which arise in a large collection. T h e custodian of the photograph and slide collection will have need of all the clear- sightedness and ingenuity that can be mus- tered, but there must ever be kept in mind the fundamental purpose of the collection, the use to which it will be put, and the public it serves. c 182 C O L L E G E , AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES