Kenn Duncan Photograph Archive

The Kenn Duncan Photograph Archive, which is located at the New York Public Library, consists of prints, negatives,  and contact sheets of prominent dancers and ballet companies.  He was a prominent performing arts photographer in the mid-twentieth century.  This collection focuses on mostly American classical ballet companies and their subsequent entities, including dancers, choreographers, and productions.  While the subject of the vast majority of the images relate to dance, there are photographs of theater productions as well.

One organizational choice in this finding aid that benefits this collection is the organization of the materials.  It isn't necessarily consistent with archival practices because the materials are organized by name of production, company, and artists rather than by original order.  For a photograph collection, this arrangement is perfect for creating access points to the photograph's subjects rather than just the theme of the series.  For example, I got to this collection by searching for Twyla Twarp, not ballet or photographs.

Also, this finding aid is incredibly easy to use.  Navigation is fairly straightforward and conducive to browsing.  One aspect that the NYPL did not do was add images of the collection to the website.  This would have added depth to the finding aid and help the researcher have a better sense of the collection.

While there are rich scope and content notes, access points, and biographical information, the level of description defies the idea that finding aids are not always the best idea for photograph collection.  The amount of description is fairly good, and the subject of the images are consistently recorded.  However, the bets aspect of this finding aid is the level of description.  For example, what performance of Mikal Baryshnikov is recorded?

If known, the performance is noted in the title.  Also, for the series on performances starring dancers or actors are always in the description.  For the researcher, this information is fantastic to give an idea of the content and context of the image.

For archivists and librarians, this finding aid is a good example of how to represent a photograph collection without showing any of the photographs.