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