Alice Smith Photographs at the New York Public Library

For this week’s blog post, I decided to look at a collection from the New York Public Library.  I chose to look at the Alice Smith photographs, 1980-1997 collection.  The collection consists of about 2,500 photographs of vocalists, instrumentalists, conductors, and composers taken by Alice Smith, an amateur photographer and lifelong music lover, backstage at Metropolitan Opera, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the Lincoln Center. 

It took me a little while to find the archival collections.  I had a few options once I got to the New York Public Library’s homepage.  There was the Research Collections, Manuscripts and Archives Prints & Photographs Online Catalog and the Digital Gallery.  I finally decided that searching the Manuscripts and Archives section would be my best bet.  I had to search the catalog using the search term “photographs” because I felt that this would make it easier to choose a collection that contained only (or mostly) photographs.  It doesn’t seem possible to browse the collection so it would be difficult for users to look at collections if they don’t know specifically what they’re looking for. 

The finding aid itself is fairly simple.  The Biographical Note is not lengthy but it provides adequate information for the user to understand who Alice Smith is as well as the history behind the creation of these photographs.  The Scope and Arrangement section provides detailed information about the size of the prints (i.e. 3.5 inch square prints) and how they are housed (i.e. in albums, in envelopes).  One thing that I found lacking is that there is no information about the format of the photographs.  Dates are given (1980-1997) but that gives little indication as to what kinds of photographs the collection includes.  The only time this is mentioned is when the finding aid discusses the inclusion of negatives. 

One aspect of description that I found to be a drawback was the fact that the Scope and Arrangement section provides two long paragraphs detailing the people that are featured in the photographs. These paragraphs begin with phrases such as “among the musicians photographed” and “musicians photographs include.”  This leads me to believe that the extensive list that they provide is likely not a complete list of everyone that is in the photographs.  The finding aid notes that most of the photographs are labeled with the names of the people in the photographs.  I am left wondering why some people are mentioned in the finding aid while the others weren’t. 

The collection was left in original order and the photographs were not rehoused when the NYPL took possession of the collection.  The collection is arranged chronologically.  The container list included in the PDF version of the finding aid is helpful for locating images if you know which year the photograph you are searching for was taken.  Otherwise, it doesn’t provide any really helpful information. 

One of the most disappointing things about this finding aid is the subject access terms.  There are five access terms covering all 2,500 photographs: photographers, appointment books, color negatives, color photographs, and color slides.  The one positive thing about these terms is that it gives clues as to what kinds of photographs are included in the collection.  However, these terms are completely inadequate to describe the individual photographs and provide sufficient access to users.  I feel that, at the very least, the names of the performers and other people photographed should be access points.  Furthermore, the theaters are not listed as subject terms either. This is probably because all subject access is at the collection level.  There is no series, box, folder, or item level description.  Perhaps if the collection is ever digitized and made available online, this level of description could be added. 

                                      

Another drawback is that users looking for photographs of specific people will be hard pressed to find their way to this collection.  I decided to conduct a search using one of the names mentioned in the Scope and Arrangement section.  When searching from the NYPL homepage for “Catherine Robbin,” the Alice Smith photographs collection did not come up.  However, it is included when searching directly from the Manuscripts and Archives page.  I think this is a pretty serious issue when it comes to providing access to users.  A user wouldn’t necessarily know that searching from different pages will yield different results.