The Online Archive of California

            I chose to look at a collection from The Online Archive of California (OAC), Historical Society of Southern California Collection – Frank Rolfe Collection of Negatives and Photographs. I started out by just scrolling thought the collections that are located on the home page. I was able to tell that they we collections of photographs because at the end of each title they had [graphic]. After failing to locate any useful collections for this assignment I decided to use the search feature on the OAC’s homepage, I searched for “photograph collections.” The query returned 14,671 collections so I knew I would be able to find collections with more information on the finding aid then I previously encountered.

            At first glance the website only gives a general overview of the collection, including a brief description and background, the extent of the collections and any restrictions that applied. Disappointed with the information provided I was about to go search for a new collection, when I noticed on the right side a small table of contents, the font is so small its almost unreadable without squinting. Located above this table of contents is a link to the entire finding aid, in PDF or HTML, this was a great relief. A nice feature on the sidebar is the ability to search within the collection, so if you we looking for a particular building or person that is associated with the collection you are able to find them quickly without treading through the entire finding aid or collection.

            The finding aid it set up like a typical archival finding aid that includes creator, title, dates, collection number, extent, historical note, scope note, arrangement, index terms, access restrictions, acquisition information, processing information and a container list. One nice feature that this finding aid included was they separated the index terms into persons, organizations, places and subjects. This would make it much easier for a researcher to locate what they are looking for faster.

            The container list was also very well put together for describing what was within each box. Since this collection is made up for mainly photographs simply putting the title of each folder can be useless and misleading in describing the content. For example, the heading for Box 3, Item 272- 338 is “Los Angeles. Central Los Angeles and vicinity, miscellaneous buildings, 1920-1932, undated.” Below the folder title and physical description is a note that reads, “[The wrecking of the Temple Block, the Amestoy Block, the Hall of Records, and Bunker Hill; West Adams; Houses where Rolfe and his wife lived in the 1920s and 30s; Snowstorm of 1932; 1920 Inglewood earthquake.]” Without the note a researcher would have no idea what is inside the folder without looking through the 66 negatives.

            Having these descriptive notes in the content list also allows for a researcher to use the search function on the collections overview page. So if they were looking for a picture of Temple Block, they would be able to search that term and be able to locate exactly where it is located in the collection.

            When I first started looking at finding aids of photographic collections I expected them to be a lot less useful than they are. Without having any digitized images and of course if you take away the description notes in the container list then it would be frustrating to use.

            This finding aid was very well put together, with the ease of use kept in mind, although I did find one small issue. For the purpose of this assignment it doesn’t affect my opinion of the usability but the creator field reads, “Rolfe, Frank, 1874-”. This finding aid was created in 2006 so I would assume that Frank Rolfe has passed away, this seems like an important date to not have in the finding aid. Other than that one minor detail I was very pleased with my experience using OAC and their finding aids.