[Yulpub] Fwd: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division

[Nancy M. Godleski]

(please pardon cross postings)



>Fr: Laura Gottesman <lgot at loc.gov>
>Date: Monday, November 28, 2005 1:58 PM -0500
>Re: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division
>
>The Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division is celebrating a new 
>landmark: one million images from its collections are now available in 
>digital form online.
>
>The millionth image, appropriately, suggests the wealth of insights the 
>Division's collections offer about both historical subjects and the 
>processes of making images.  The photograph depicts Washington Senators 
>baseball player Herman A. "Germany" Schaefer using a camera during a visit 
>to play the New York Highlanders in April 1911.  (The image can be seen 
>at: <  http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.09131 >).  It is from one of the 
>Division's strong photojournalism collections, the George Grantham Bain 
>Collection-an archive of more than 50,000 photographs from the first 
>syndicated photo news service in the U.S.  More than half of the images in 
>that collection are now available online. (For more information on the 
>Bain Collection, see < http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/ggbainhtml/ggbainabt.html >)
>
>Digital images from the Prints & Photographs Division are available 
>through the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) < 
>http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html >.  The catalog provides access 
>through group or item records to about 65% of the Division's holdings, a 
>portion of which are accompanied by digital images.  The records represent 
>the variety of materials held in the nearly 14 million items in the 
>Division's collections.  In addition to photographs, these include fine 
>and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and 
>engineering drawings. The collections are international in scope and are 
>particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, 
>the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the 
>American people.
>
>In addition to the growing pool of digitized images available through 
>PPOC, recently added records make it possible to search several categories 
>of material more comprehensively and to expand searches in new ways:
>
>- American fine prints: Almost 10,000 American fine prints by more than 
>1,200 different artists now have online records in PPOC containing 
>information compiled in the 1960s for the book American Prints in the 
>Library of Congress by Karen Beall. About 4% have digital images for 
>online viewing.  To search the fine prints, go to the Prints and 
>Photographs Online Catalog <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html>, 
>select the blue button labeled: "Search the Catalog," and then scroll down 
>the alphabetical list of collections to "Fine Prints."
>
>- PH Filing Series photographs: More than 2,500 selected individual 
>photographic prints of special aesthetic, technical, or historic 
>importance and similarly significant sets of unbound prints in published 
>or unpublished portfolios, ca. 1841-2001. About 30% have digital images 
>for online viewing.  For more information, see < 
>http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/phhtml/phabt.html >
>
>- Third Reich Collection:  More than 450 presentation albums, scrapbooks 
>and groups of photographs related to the Third Reich in Germany 
>(1933-1945) described through group records, with some links to selected 
>digitized items. Images in the collection portray Nazi leaders; political 
>events after World War I and the rise of the Nazi Party; the 1936 
>Olympics; World War II scenes; art and architecture; and industries. To 
>search for these materials, go to the Prints and Photographs Online 
>Catalog <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html>, select the blue button 
>labeled: "Search the Catalog," and then type into the search blank "Third 
>Reich Collection."
>
>- Thesaurus for Graphic Materials in PPOC: The standardized subject, 
>genre, and image process terms and their cross-references have been 
>integrated into the online catalog. Links enable researchers to look up 
>related terms or to look for pictures indexed with the term, offering a 
>new means for exploring topics and types of images represented in Prints & 
>Photographs Division collections.  To search or view the thesaurus terms, 
>go to the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog 
><http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html>, select the blue button 
>labeled: "Search the Catalog," and then scroll down the alphabetical list 
>of collections to "Thesaurus for Graphic Materials."
>
>For information on new collections and  recent and upcoming activities in 
>the Prints and Photographs Division, see the division's "What's New" page 
><http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/whatsnew.html>.
>
>For questions about the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog or the 
>holdings and services of the Prints and Photographs Division, consult our 
>Ask a Librarian service: <http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-print.html>.
>
>
>Laura Gottesman
>Reference Librarian
>Digital Reference Team
>The Library of Congress

***********************************************************************
Nancy M. Godleski
Kaplanoff Librarian for American History
Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University
P.O. Box 208240  New Haven, CT 06250-8240
Phone: (203) 432-4798   Fax: (203) 432-8527