AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROMEPHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Lavinia Ciuffa l.ciuffa@aarome.org

design Maria Sole Fabri

Procedures in the Photographic Archive: the acquisition of historical collections to making them

accessible on the web

Visual Resource Association28th Annual Conference

Atlanta, March 16-21 March, 2010

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

The Mc

The McKim, Mead & White Building In the square, the location of the future Photographic Archive, 1913

The Photographic Archive housed in the Library, 1956-1993

• Alinari - Alinari Picture Imaging Photo Gallery

• Università di Bologna, Archivio Storico - http://www.archiviostorico.unibo.it/fotografico/

• Museo Pigorini - www.pigorini.beniculturali.it

• ICCD (Central Institute for Cataloguing and Conservation) - http://immagini.iccd.beniculturali.it

• Isituto Luce - www.archivioluce.com

• Fondazione Zeri - http://fe.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/catalogo/hp

• Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma - http://www.fotosar.it/

• Polo Fiorentino Museale, Archivio Fotografico - http://www.polomuseale.firenze.it/archiviofotografico/

• Musei Capitolini - http://www.museicapitolini.org/mostre_ed_eventi/mostre/(p)/in_archivio

• MAXXI, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo - http://www.maxxi.beniculturali.it/collezioni_arch.htm

• Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - http://www.khi.fi.it/it/photothek/

• FotoMuseo Collezione Panini - http://www.fotomuseo.it/

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Masson Collection

Van Deman Collection Fototeca Unione

Masson Collection

Beato Collection

Masson Collection Fellows’ Work Collection

Vermeule Collection

Parker CollectionBerman Collection

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

From the ’20s through the ’70s the Photo Archive has grown without a specific order ... prints, nitrates, glass plates ... were placed wherever

in the Library

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROMEPHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Designer: Cinzia Abbate & Carlo Vigevano Architects

Project manager: Cristina Puglisi (1999)

This is a preliminary investigation based on the information given in the donation proposal

ACQUIRING PROCEDURE

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Evaluation of the proposal

• Subject Existing holdings / importance / relation to the AAR history

• How many prints have already been published ?

• State of conservation - what is the cost of preserving/maintaining the collection ?

• Will copyrights be transferred ?

• What are the costs of cataloguing ? What are the costs of digitizing ?

• If digital images, are they already available on the web?

• Can donors afford certain expenses?

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Organizing steps of workflow In-house Outsource

Defining historical context Duplication Inventory IT SupportConservation expertise DigitizationCataloguingSorting images to digitizeStoring digital images

Estimate of costs for material and labor involved

Organizing staff (roles/implementation)

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Once the donation has been accepted, an important phase of the procedure follows …

… professional survey of the photographic materials

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Ordering conservation material (sleeves, boxes, folders…)Organizing phases of laborCleaning, repairing, housing, labelling Storing material preserved

Print preservers/paper folders: acid free, lignin-free, pH 8.0-8.5, passed P.A.T.

Negative preservers/sleeves: polypropylene (PP), neutral pH, Melinex (polyester)

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Space will also be evaluated either for negatives in the climate controlled room and for positives in the consultation room

Centro Berselli - www.centroberselli.it

Alinari - www.alinarifondazione.it

Folia - www.foliarestauro.it

Archivio Segreto Vaticano - asv.vatican.va/it/lab/fotograf.htm

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

www.reteurbs.orgCataloguing

www.reteurbs.org

Today URBS is composed of 11 institutional members, chiefly Academies and research Institutes of several nations: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. The mission of the network, whose bibliographic holdings are mainly in the humanistic disciplines, is to provide its users with a unified catalogue of specialized libraries in Rome.

• Format USMARC (MARC21)• ISBD (International Standard Bibliographic Description)

Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2) Vatican Library Cataloguing Rules

Library of Congress Subject Headings Vatican Library Subject Headings (SBAV)http://www.iccd.beniculturali.it/Catalogazione/standardcatalografici/normative/scheda-f

In 1999 the ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) has created the so-called “Scheda F”, a national standard model for data (UNIMARC format) to catalogue images.

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

• DATABASE IDRA

http://aarome.idra.info

http://findingaids.idra.info/

Copyrights

Pantheon, Rome, 2009 Brad Farwell photographer

Under the Italian law no. 248/2000 “New rules on copyright protection”, the image is protected whichever the instrument used to realize it …

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Amphiteatrum Flavium, Rome, 2009 Marco Delogu photographer

Amphiteatrum Flavium, Rome, 1970 Fototeca Unione

A difference is made between Creative/Artistic and Non- creative/Documentary images

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Archives as Places of Memory

Only the integration between the analogue format and the digital format can guarantee the correct conservation of the photographic heritage

The Kunsthistorisches Institute in Florenz has published a document with the Recommendations for the Preservation of Analogue Photographs: http://www.khi.fi.it/pdf/florence_declaration_en.pdf

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME - PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

Photographic Archive Staff

Alessandra Capodiferro, Curator

Lavinia Ciuffa, Assistant Curator

Emiliano Di Carlo, Archaeologist - Cataloguer

Giulia Ciccarello, Archaeologist - Cataloguer

Maria Sole Fabri, Art Historian - Conservator

Antonio Palladino and Paola Tirelli, Administration

American Academy in Rome Photographic Archive Via Angelo Masina 5 Rome, Italy

www.aarome.org photoarchive@aarome.org