Excluding the summer classes, this semester will be the last for my Master’s degree. One of the classes I will be taking is the archival seminar where we will be asked to write a 30 page research paper. I am hoping to use this to get more in depth with visual materials appraisal criteria. This would involve looking at what archivists, and hopefully specifically those archivists who work primarily with visual materials, see as valuable in a visual collection. With my experience assisting a VM archivist, it seems that many of the same factors such as cohesiveness and completeness of a collection are desirable. There are other factors in visual collections that may weigh more heavily than in a textual collection or that are not present in textual collections.
During the semester, I would like to be allowed to process and appraise a collection mainly comprised of photographic and visual materials. During this process, I will examine each decision step by step, articulating and thoroughly documenting each choice. using the available literature on appraisal, photographic materials and non-textual materials in archives, as well as in other subject areas such as photojournalism, in addition to the examination of appraisal decisions, I hope to establish some sort of rubric, theory or general guidelines for the appraisal of photographic materials. This exploration will also include discussions on value and the idea of neutral archives.
I see the exploration of the process of decision-making being slightly more informal than the sections dealing with photographic appraisal, value and neutral archives. I will attempt to create a formalized, general set of guidelines or theory.
As I don’t yet know the parameters of the assignment or scope of the project, I am hoping that this will be acceptable and fitting. I expect to find that amount of knowledge on the particular subject matter on behalf of the archivist to be relevant as well as time and resource allocation. For the theory or guideline section, I have no idea what to expect. I am also planning on relying heavily on the experience of the processing of a collection to form the theory, to encounter and record issues and also to provide inspiration for new areas in which to delve into researching for general archival practice.
Tags: appraisal theory, Archives, assignment, Graduate School Experience, photographic appraisal, processing, research, value, Visual Materials