A journey in collections management : the creation of a finding aid for the Black Star Ephemera Collection at the Ryerson Image Centre

This applied project involved the creation of a finding aid for the Black Star Ephemera Collection held at the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC) at Ryerson University in Toronto. This little known and un-catalogued collection was originally part of the Black Star Agency photographic collection founded in New York City in 1935. Black Star is a well known photo agency that has served as a resource for the picture press during the twentieth century, providing photographs of significant events, people, and places. This ephemeral collection is made up of all the textual material originally used by the agency to organize and support the photographic collection. In addition to the finding aid this paper discussed the significance of this collection and its relationship to the history of photojournalism as well as providing a summary of the rational and methodology for the applied project.