[Personal_archives] Description question

[Jane Britton]

Rodney,
I agree with your approach. I think I may go ahead and describe it at the highest level, treating the professional photographs as a series,  even though we do not yet have the photographer's personal photographs. Given his positive reaction to our treatment of his collection so far I am fairly certain that the rest will come our way.

Describing the professional photos we currently have as a fonds would lead down the road to having to change the description everywhere it exists - our in-house database, library catalogue, website, Archeion (not to mention relabeling).
Thanks
Jane

Jane Britton
Archivist, Special Collections
University of Waterloo Library
200 University Ave. W. Waterloo ON N2L 3G1
(519) 888-4567 x32445  FAX: (519) 888-4322

[Wordmark_Web_or_Email_uWaterloo]

From: Rodney Carter [mailto:rgscarter at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, December 6, 2010 12:23 PM
To: Jane Britton
Cc: personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Personal_archives] Description question

Hi Jane,
I would probably approach it as one fonds with two series, one for personal and one for the studio. You would then have the biographical information for the photographer at the highest level and then specify in the administrative history and scope and content notes the activities which led to the creation of particular photographs. If the distinction between activities are very rigid you could potentially also use sous-fonds to separate them, although I am not sure how frequently sous-fonds are used outside descriptions of corporate records.
Rodney
On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 1:41 PM, Jane Britton <jbritton at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:jbritton at uwaterloo.ca>> wrote:
Last year a local photographer donated his negatives to our repository and in the course of  writing a fonds description it occurred to me that there was no direction in RAD or in the literature that I could find on how to treat the fonds of an individual who is also a business. Looking at other photographer's studio fonds listed in CAIN it's apparent that most are described under the business or studio name (many of these also have a succession of photographers), a decision that makes intuitive sense but one that I have begun to question.

In the case of photographers, it is usually only their oeuvre, if you will, that ends up in an archive, so although photographs are created by the individual, it is the individual wearing a business hat, so the business name is used as the creator, say for example "Black Tie Studio fonds". ( Although I would like to think, for argument's sake, that the person's name would be an equally valid choice.)

In this particular case I have reason to think that the photographer will also donate his personal photographs to us. In that case he as an individual would be the creator and the fonds would be "Joe Black fonds". So my dilemma is, do I then have one fonds or two fonds? Or one fonds with two series, Personal and Studio photographs? Or what?

If anyone has dealt with this situation before or has any thoughts I would be grateful for some input.

Regards and thanks.

Jane Britton
Archivist, Special Collections
University of Waterloo Library
200 University Ave. W. Waterloo ON N2L 3G1
(519) 888-4567 x32445  FAX: (519) 888-4322

[Wordmark_Web_or_Email_uWaterloo]


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