Greetings! Happy New Year! Welcome to 2012 and, on Wednesday, the beginning of Spring Semester at SJSU. I should offer a mea culpa for my lack of updates to this blog during the Fall semester, but rather than make apologies I will instead offer an intention to write more frequently about books, art, and artists' books. One of the highlights already to happen in 2012 was the College Book Arts Association Conference, which I attended a few week-ends ago at Mills College in Oakland. It was an inspiring and educational conference, a well thought out event filled with artists, curators, and the assorted professionals of the book world, librarians included. In the coming weeks, I will be writing more about the artists' books collection at SJSU.
I will also be bragging this spring and into fall that I am now a member of the Book Club of California, an august organization that will be celebrating its first centennial in 2012. I say first because I expect this organization to be flourishing centuries into the future, a magical mainstay of preservation, conservation, and exaltation of the book. Yes, I am excited. If you are interested in the Centennial Conference happening in October, you might like to go to this website for more information: http://www.bccbooks.org/centennial.htm
But I promised you a comment about Ticklish T's and a favorite new project. These two concepts are related. The T's first, specifically, the T in the Library of Congress classification. Since photography has a technical, perhaps we can even say mechanized aspect to it, books on photography are most frequently classed in the T area, rather than N. A hindrance to browsing, perhaps? An opportunity for those expensive books on photography and photographers to be easily accessible to scurrilous hands that mis-shelve or otherwise abuse them? Alas, those problems have plagued any open stack collection and I won't go into those problems right now. My point is, if you are looking for books on photography, particularly the history of photography or photographic techniques, you must betake yourself to the T area of a library that employs the LC classification scheme.
My LC Subject headings for you today are:
Photography -- Printing processes
Here are some examples of how this heading can be further subdivided:
Photography -- Printing processes--history
Photography -- Printing processes- History -- 19th century
Photography -- Printing processes -- History -- Exhibitions
Photography has many intriguing words associated with its processes, properties, and apparati. Platinum, palladium, cyanotype. Gradient, negative, developer. And two very magical words: silver gelatin. Silver Gelatin. Sure, same them out loud, I am. Silver Gelatin.
What comes to mind? Ansel Adams, of course. The Weston family of photographers. Layered tones of silver, black, and white that present a luminous capture of a moment. There are still photographers practicing today the art of traditional photograph printing, and I am going to introduce you to two of them right now.
Anton Orlov and Ryan Kalem are orchestrating the completion of the Photo Palace Bus, a mobile photographic studio. I am proud to say they are also graduates of the San Jose State University School of Art and Design. As the semester begins, it is delightful to see what some alumni are doing with their knowledge and it renews me as an academic librarian to know that on my campus, the next Big Thing in art is quite likely to be found. Every day I am on campus, I see potential. I see it in the conversations students are having, in the way they interact with each other, in the questions they ask, or when look up a book record and see the book is checked out. Sure, by mid-March I'll be bleary eyed and maybe a little overwhelmed, but there is really nothing like the beginning of a new semester, when we go, armed with fresh enthusiasm, to meet the future.
I'm going to let Anton and Ryan explain their vision via their Kickstarter video. After you watch it, I want you to go get your preferred form of commerce, and make a pledge. I can't think that you'll need more motivation than just watching their video to make a contribution to the creation of The Photo Palace Bus, but just in case you do, I'll tactfully remind you tomorrow is my birthday, and if you prefer not to publicly admit to your reading of this blog don't worry, you can also pledge anonymously! I'll never know, dear reader, that it was you who helped make this vision into a road warrior of Photographic Fantastic-ness, but you will, and that's what matters, isn't it?
Without further ado: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/351976604/the-photo-palace-bus
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Monday, June 27, 2011
What a Dictionary of Modern Design can do for you.
The thoughtful foray into the 2nd floor reference collection needs to move at a less stately pace, lest deadlines creep into danger zones, but how can I hurry when I keep finding sources I want to page through from cover to cover?
I once commented to a person interested in librarianship, yes, if you want to read encyclopedias, you probably should be a librarian. Reference sources often trick me into the thinking the whole world can be an organized place. Let's take Johnathan Woodham's 2004 Dictionary of Modern Design as an example.
This is a very useful book for short but well written definitions of concepts and events and materials, as well as brief biographies of major designers. This is another example of the type of source I would advocate as a tool for choosing a topic. Before plunging into article databases, or even browsing the stacks, start with this one volume and let your mind wander through the entries on topics such as Fiskars, Fordism, Ikea, and mail order. Besides the entries specific to design, Woodham also includes entries on writers like Vance Packard and Betty Friedan.
In addition to the individual entries, Woodham also provides three things most librarians love: a bibliography (well, we all love those), an index, and a timeline. The bibliography is a helpful tool for collection development. The timeline is a useful tool, and I apply my typical approach in looking up a year I am interested in. 1900--the year of the Paris Salon, but also the year Bakelite was patented. For every decade, there is a section on Design Landmarks, Technology, Processes, and Materials, as well as Key Exhibitions and Publications.
Besides having this title available on the second floor of King Library, it can be accessed via the Library Catalog with an SJSU id and pin.
I once commented to a person interested in librarianship, yes, if you want to read encyclopedias, you probably should be a librarian. Reference sources often trick me into the thinking the whole world can be an organized place. Let's take Johnathan Woodham's 2004 Dictionary of Modern Design as an example.
This is a very useful book for short but well written definitions of concepts and events and materials, as well as brief biographies of major designers. This is another example of the type of source I would advocate as a tool for choosing a topic. Before plunging into article databases, or even browsing the stacks, start with this one volume and let your mind wander through the entries on topics such as Fiskars, Fordism, Ikea, and mail order. Besides the entries specific to design, Woodham also includes entries on writers like Vance Packard and Betty Friedan.
In addition to the individual entries, Woodham also provides three things most librarians love: a bibliography (well, we all love those), an index, and a timeline. The bibliography is a helpful tool for collection development. The timeline is a useful tool, and I apply my typical approach in looking up a year I am interested in. 1900--the year of the Paris Salon, but also the year Bakelite was patented. For every decade, there is a section on Design Landmarks, Technology, Processes, and Materials, as well as Key Exhibitions and Publications.
Besides having this title available on the second floor of King Library, it can be accessed via the Library Catalog with an SJSU id and pin.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Summer also is for Reference Books.
Greetings! In reviewing the reference books in Art, I have had a chance to revisit some of my favorite titles and get acquainted with new favorites. I'm going to make this a short entry in order to keep moving through the collection, but I wanted to write up today's find so it will be more firmly embedded in my memory.
An illustrated dictionary of ornament / by Maureen Stafford and Dora Ware. London: Allen & Unwin, 1974.
I was particularly enamored of this title because of the illustrations used as examples. The entry on heraldic ornament gives several pages of "devices", the symbols chosen as insignia. The black and white drawings range from the crowned owl of Leeds to the winged horse of Exeter. This source would be an excellent choice if you wanted to review the Order of Architecture in regard to columns. You might be able to rattle off Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, but do you know your dentils from your modillions?
More on Decoration and Ornament in my next post!
An illustrated dictionary of ornament / by Maureen Stafford and Dora Ware. London: Allen & Unwin, 1974.
I was particularly enamored of this title because of the illustrations used as examples. The entry on heraldic ornament gives several pages of "devices", the symbols chosen as insignia. The black and white drawings range from the crowned owl of Leeds to the winged horse of Exeter. This source would be an excellent choice if you wanted to review the Order of Architecture in regard to columns. You might be able to rattle off Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, but do you know your dentils from your modillions?
More on Decoration and Ornament in my next post!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Summer=museums
Today is May 26th, 2011. Over the course of the week-end, literally thousands of San Jose State University students will become SJSU alumni! Congratulations to everyone who will cross a stage in a cap and gown and find new ground under your feet.
What do librarians do in the summer? Well, some of us have mapped out grandiose schemes of updating all manner of policies, web pages, and procedures. Some of us aspire to tidy our offices. Many of us will submerge, quietly, into the cool, quiet stacks and let our minds expand with thoughts of how we will reorder out thoughts and plots to be ever better librarians when Fall comes round again.
Some of us, and I'm not saying who, will be running amok and trying to catch all the museum exhibits as humanly possible. If you are in San Jose, or near here, I highly recommend the San Jose Museum of Art's current exhibition titled The Modern Photographer: Observation and Intention | Selections from the Permanent Collection which will be on display until July 3. It is a very well curated show of early 20th century photography, including stellar examples from Ruth Bernhard and P.H. Polk. If you hurry, you can also see the impressive Mapplethorpe Portraits show, which is only up 'til June 5th.
What do librarians do in the summer? Well, some of us have mapped out grandiose schemes of updating all manner of policies, web pages, and procedures. Some of us aspire to tidy our offices. Many of us will submerge, quietly, into the cool, quiet stacks and let our minds expand with thoughts of how we will reorder out thoughts and plots to be ever better librarians when Fall comes round again.
Some of us, and I'm not saying who, will be running amok and trying to catch all the museum exhibits as humanly possible. If you are in San Jose, or near here, I highly recommend the San Jose Museum of Art's current exhibition titled The Modern Photographer: Observation and Intention | Selections from the Permanent Collection which will be on display until July 3. It is a very well curated show of early 20th century photography, including stellar examples from Ruth Bernhard and P.H. Polk. If you hurry, you can also see the impressive Mapplethorpe Portraits show, which is only up 'til June 5th.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Words about Images
Begging your pardon for the lapse in posting--can it really be as long as last November when I was moved by the muse to contribute to this blog? Maybe it really has taken that long to mull over thoughts until they have become malleable into sentences.
Words, sentences, paragraph: idea, concept, representation. How's that for a GRE question? I have been reading about cataloging and searching of images in several different venues. Much like the warp speed of book catalogs going from print to online beasts, online access to images, or the knowledge of where an image resides in a printed format, has gone from a moseying pedestrian to high-speed rail. (Although here in California the concept of high speed rail continues to be a mythical creature.)
I am frequently asked, in my lucky position as an O-fficial Art Librarian, my thoughts about services that provide access to online images. Let me go ahead and throw my hat on the dinner table and say that ARTSTOR is indeed the current ne plus ultra of online image libraries. It is. Yes, it is expensive. Yes, it takes time to learn how to use. But with a million images and counting, it is outpacing the collections of would-be competitors.
But the purpose of this post is to draw attention to current Anglo-American methodologies of how images are cataloged, how are images represented in databases that rely on text. I refer you to, and defer to, the expertise of librarians at The Getty and the Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA). One may see the CDWA online at: http://www.getty.edu/research/publications/electronic_publications/cdwa/
If you would like a good introduction to what the CDWA is for, and how librarians feel confident (it is one of our charming attributes, our confidence) in assigning subject/content labels to works of art, I refer you to Patricia Harpring's excellent chapter The Language of Images: Enhancing Access to Images by Applying Metadata Schemas and Structured Vocabularies which appears in Introduction to Art Image Access: Issues, Tools, Standards, and Strategies, 2002, Edited by Murtha Baca. You need just lift a finger, and gently click:
http://www.getty.edu/research/publications/electronic_publications/intro_aia/harpring.html
Go! Read! I have to go to the desk.
Words, sentences, paragraph: idea, concept, representation. How's that for a GRE question? I have been reading about cataloging and searching of images in several different venues. Much like the warp speed of book catalogs going from print to online beasts, online access to images, or the knowledge of where an image resides in a printed format, has gone from a moseying pedestrian to high-speed rail. (Although here in California the concept of high speed rail continues to be a mythical creature.)
I am frequently asked, in my lucky position as an O-fficial Art Librarian, my thoughts about services that provide access to online images. Let me go ahead and throw my hat on the dinner table and say that ARTSTOR is indeed the current ne plus ultra of online image libraries. It is. Yes, it is expensive. Yes, it takes time to learn how to use. But with a million images and counting, it is outpacing the collections of would-be competitors.
But the purpose of this post is to draw attention to current Anglo-American methodologies of how images are cataloged, how are images represented in databases that rely on text. I refer you to, and defer to, the expertise of librarians at The Getty and the Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA). One may see the CDWA online at: http://www.getty.edu/research/publications/electronic_publications/cdwa/
If you would like a good introduction to what the CDWA is for, and how librarians feel confident (it is one of our charming attributes, our confidence) in assigning subject/content labels to works of art, I refer you to Patricia Harpring's excellent chapter The Language of Images: Enhancing Access to Images by Applying Metadata Schemas and Structured Vocabularies which appears in Introduction to Art Image Access: Issues, Tools, Standards, and Strategies, 2002, Edited by Murtha Baca. You need just lift a finger, and gently click:
http://www.getty.edu/research/publications/electronic_publications/intro_aia/harpring.html
Go! Read! I have to go to the desk.
Friday, November 19, 2010
A few thoughts about color
Greetings!
Just a few mid-November thoughts about color for this entry. The changing light of our days in California brings to mind the role of light in color. The mid afternoon light on our sunny days is nothing short of enchanting, which makes our occasional rainy afternoons that much more dramatic.
How are books on color organized? There are some recent titles that focus on the cultural history of specific colors, such as:
Black : the history of a color / Michel Pastoureau.
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2009.
This book has the following subject headings:
Black.
Color -- Psychological aspects -- History.
Color -- Social aspects -- History.
Symbolism of colors -- History.
Black in art.
I was thinking about the role of color in photography today when I was sharing a 1925 publication with a colleague and we were looking at the fashion photos. He made the observation, "But how would people go shopping from these, they are not in color."
Now, since my colleague is a whole 12 years younger than I am, he probably doesn't recall color tv being anything less than a household staple.
So I offer this question to you, readers: what has been/is the role of color photography and color television in the history of fashion? For example, some pages of the famous Godey's Lady's Book included color plates, but often one might have a black and white plate with an accompanying description.
A few other related links on this rainy Friday:
The International Colour Association: http://www.aic-colour.org/index.html
Did you know that color juggernaut Pantone has been purchased by a company with the puzzling moniker X-Rite? Have a look:
http://www.xrite.com/home.aspx
Just a few mid-November thoughts about color for this entry. The changing light of our days in California brings to mind the role of light in color. The mid afternoon light on our sunny days is nothing short of enchanting, which makes our occasional rainy afternoons that much more dramatic.
How are books on color organized? There are some recent titles that focus on the cultural history of specific colors, such as:
Black : the history of a color / Michel Pastoureau.
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2009.
This book has the following subject headings:
Black.
Color -- Psychological aspects -- History.
Color -- Social aspects -- History.
Symbolism of colors -- History.
Black in art.
I was thinking about the role of color in photography today when I was sharing a 1925 publication with a colleague and we were looking at the fashion photos. He made the observation, "But how would people go shopping from these, they are not in color."
Now, since my colleague is a whole 12 years younger than I am, he probably doesn't recall color tv being anything less than a household staple.
So I offer this question to you, readers: what has been/is the role of color photography and color television in the history of fashion? For example, some pages of the famous Godey's Lady's Book included color plates, but often one might have a black and white plate with an accompanying description.
A few other related links on this rainy Friday:
The International Colour Association: http://www.aic-colour.org/index.html
Did you know that color juggernaut Pantone has been purchased by a company with the puzzling moniker X-Rite? Have a look:
http://www.xrite.com/home.aspx
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Virtual Discoveries: The Frick Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America
Midsummer Greetings! Once again, I write from a cluttered desk, with hopes of achieving a sense of tidyness, if not order. Today's intended task was cleaning up the avalanche of electronic bookmarks with which I have deluged my "Del.ic.ious" account--a handy tool for stashing bookmarks for websites.
I set out with good, good intentions. I log into Del.ic.ious, which fortunately saved my passwords and set right out to do some editing, tagging, refining.
I am immediately distracted. The first item on my list of unsorted bookmarks is for CRSA, the Catalogue Raisonné Scholars Association. (That fluttering sound you detect is my librarian heart--an association for that most valuable of genres? The Catalogue Raisonne!) I take a moment to skim the latest issue of their forum, and must explore, at once, the topic of a major article in the issue, The Frick Collection: Archives Directory for the History of Collecting.
What is the Archives Directory for the History of Collecting? As described on the site, it is a "resource created to help researchers locate primary source material about American collectors, dealers, agents and advisors, and the repositories that hold these records."
Besides being able to search and browse this database, another valuable feature is the timeline. Have a look here: http://research.frick.org/directoryweb/timeline.php
I'm quite interested in the possible uses of this resource--it seems very flexible in terms of helping a novice quickly understand major figures in American art collecting as well as the expert in rapidly determining which archives to consult.
Nicely done! A bibliographic salute to Frick!
Now, let's see what other gems are waiting for me in my del.ic.ious account!
Rebecca
I set out with good, good intentions. I log into Del.ic.ious, which fortunately saved my passwords and set right out to do some editing, tagging, refining.
I am immediately distracted. The first item on my list of unsorted bookmarks is for CRSA, the Catalogue Raisonné Scholars Association. (That fluttering sound you detect is my librarian heart--an association for that most valuable of genres? The Catalogue Raisonne!) I take a moment to skim the latest issue of their forum, and must explore, at once, the topic of a major article in the issue, The Frick Collection: Archives Directory for the History of Collecting.
What is the Archives Directory for the History of Collecting? As described on the site, it is a "resource created to help researchers locate primary source material about American collectors, dealers, agents and advisors, and the repositories that hold these records."
Besides being able to search and browse this database, another valuable feature is the timeline. Have a look here: http://research.frick.org/directoryweb/timeline.php
I'm quite interested in the possible uses of this resource--it seems very flexible in terms of helping a novice quickly understand major figures in American art collecting as well as the expert in rapidly determining which archives to consult.
Nicely done! A bibliographic salute to Frick!
Now, let's see what other gems are waiting for me in my del.ic.ious account!
Rebecca
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