Providing Enhanced Digital Access to a Collection of Material Photographs: a Considered Approach

The material-turn in photographic studies reveals that photographs cannot be correctly understood without direct interpretation of their physicality; however, institutions with photograph collections are increasingly offering digital access to these physical objects. With the benefits of digital access being too great to ignore, this research determines how a public institution can best enhance access to a collection of material photographs through digital media, while maintaining the core needs of the institution, its users, and the meaning of the photographs themselves. Using the Charles Chusseau-Flaviens collection at George Eastman House as an example, this research reveals practical benefits of combining Web 2.0 technologies such as Flickr with Encoded Archival Description (EAD) into an effective and efficient collection-level finding aid. This thesis presents an approach to providing enhanced digital access to a large collection of photographs while considering their materiality. The resulting finding aid can be found at: http://www.ryanbuckley.ca/findingaid/chusseau-flaviens.xml.