Those ticklish T's of call numbers and a new favorite project.

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