Spring 2004 - Mondays 12:30-4:30 PM, Rm 639
History and Culture of Museums, Archives, and other Repositories
H72.1801
Instructor: Howard Besser
Office hours: Mondays 4:30-6:30, and by appointment
On a macro level, this course examines the different types of institutions
that collect moving image material. It explains how cultural institutions
differ from one another, and from other institutions that collect and manage
moving image collections(including corporate institutions). It also examines
why certain types of material are not collected by any institutions. On a
micro level, the course examines what the various departments within a collecting
institution do. Students will learn about missions and ethics, as well as
about accessioning, budgeting, and fundraising. Aspects of project management
and handling competing interests within the organization will also be covered.
The course also looks at the history of moving image archives and related
organizations. Includes visits to NYC museums, archives, and libraries.
This is a seminar, with emphasis on readings and class discussions. |
Classes
|
Jan 26: Theory & Concepts
Assignments due before class:
Topics covered:
- Introduction to entire class
- Characteristics of Libraries, Archives, Historical Societies, History
Museums, Science Museums, Art Museums, etc. and how their different missions
and roles affect what they collect, how they organize it, and preservation
policies
- Film: Alain Resnais' Toutes les Memoirs du Monde
- Assignment due Feb 9: Write-ups of visits to cultural heritage organizations
Current Events
- Museum
Finds Lewis and Clark Artifact, Lost for Century, NY Times, Jan 21,
2004
- An
Unexpected Artifact, NY Times editorial, Jan 22, 2004
- Along
Public Trail, a Church Recounts Its History, NY Times, Jan 23, 2004
- Smithsonian's
Chief Admits Endangered-Bird Violations, NY Times, Jan 24, 2004
- The Tyranny
of Copyright?, Robert S Boynton, NY Times Magazine, Jan 25, 2004
back to top
Feb 2: Histories of Libraries, Museums, & Archives
Assignments due before class
- Read:
- O'Toole, James. (1990) "The History of the Archives Profession." In Understanding
Archives and Manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American Archivists., pp. 27-47
- Steedman, Carolyn. Dust: The Archive and Cultural History. New Brunswick,
N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002, pages ix-xi and 1-16
- Microcosms. Cabinets of Curiosity:
Sites of Knowledge
- New York Public Library (2002). History of Cabinets
of Curiosities, and Prominent Figures
and Cabinets in the History of Wunderkammern --follow links (The
Public's Treasures: A Cabinet of Curiosities from The New York Public Library)
- Walker Art Center. Wunderkammern,
Cabinets of Curiosity, and Memory Palaces
- Hein, Hilde S. "Museum Typology" in The Museum in Transition:
A Philosophical Perspective. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press,
2000, pp 17-36.
- Evans, Jessica. "Nation and Representation'" in Boswell, David and
Jessica Evans eds. Representing the Nation: A Reader: Histories, Heritage
and Museums. New York: Routledge, 1999, pp 1-8
- Innes, H.A. (1995) "Media in Ancient Empires." In Communication in
History: Technology, Culture, Societ. D. Crowley and P. Heyer, eds.
White Plains, NY : Longman Publishers.
- McCluhan, M. (1964) "The Written Word: An Eye for An Ear." In Understanding
Media: The Extensions of Man. (pp. 84-90) New York: Mentor.
- O'Donnell, James. (1998) Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace.
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press. (see selections on website)
- Ong, Walter. (1982) "Print, Space, and Closure." In Orality and Literacy
(pp. 117-138) New York : Methuen.
- Drucker, Johanna. "The Codex and Its Variations." The Century of Artists'
Books. New York: Granary Books, 1997. 121-59
- Shuman, Bruce A. (1992) "A Brief History of Information Issues",
in Foundations and Issues in Library and Information Science, Englewood,
CO: Libraries Unlimited, pp 8-25
- Feather, John. (1994) The Information Society: A Study of Contiuity
and Change. London : Library Association Publishing.
- pp. 9-25 "The Historical Dimension: From Print to Script."
- pp. 26-35 "Mass Media and New Technolgy."
- pp. 35-60 "The Information Marketplace."
- Buckland, Michael. (1997) What is a Document?", Journal of the American Society for Information Science 48 (9), pp.
804-809
- Bush, Vannevar.(1945) As We May
Think, Atlantic Monthly 176, July, pp.101-108
- Buckland, Michael. Emanuel Goldberg,
Electronic Document Retrieval, And Vannevar Bush's Memex, Journal of the
American Society for Information Science 43, no. 4 (May 1992): 284-29
- Baker, Nicholson. (1996) The Projector." in The Size of Thoughts.
New York: Random House, pp. 36-50
- Mann, Sarah Ziebell. "The Evolution of American Moving Image Preservation:
Defining the Preservation Landscape (1967-1977)", The Moving Image 1:2
(Fall 2001), pp 1-20
- Rosen, Robert. "The UCLA Film and Television Archive: A Retrospective
Look, The Moving Image 2:2 (Fall 2002)
- Optional:
- Houston, Penelope. Keepers of the Frame: The Film Archives
- Clanchy, M.T. (1994) "Looking back from the Invention of Printing."? Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 39(3), pp.
309-32.
- Hay, Denis. (1967) "Fiat Lux." In John Carter and Percy H. Muir, Printing
and the Mind of Man (pp. xv-[xxiv]). London : Casell and
Co.
- Belk, Russell W. "A Brief History of Collecting," in Collecting in
Consumer Society. New York: Routledge, 1995, pages 22-64
- Pearce, Susan M. "Collecting Processes," in On Collecting: An Investigation
into collecting in the European tradition . New York: Routledge, 1995,
pages 3-35
- Pearce, Susan M. "Collecting in Time" in On Collecting: An Investigation
into collecting in the European tradition. New York: Routledge, 1995
pages 235-25
Current Events
- All Shook Up
Over Cutting and Selling of Elvis Tape, NY Times, Jan 28, 2004
- Art Institute of Chicago Appoints Courtauld Chief Its New Director, NY
Times, Jan 22, 2004
- A Director for
the Whitney’s New Age , NY Times, Jan 29, 2004
- "Stockholm: Conflict over 'Mein Kampf'" in Arts Brief, NY
Times, Jan 27, 2004
- Abuse Case Revisited,
Cloudier Than Ever, NY Times, Jan 27, 2004
- Music Royalties
Rise, Even as CD Sales Fall, NY Times, Jan 26, 2004
- Pixar Sees
End to Its Disney Partnership, NY Times, Jan 30, 2004; and Pixar to
Find Its Own Way as Disney Partnership Ends, NY Times, Jan 31, 2004
- Thomas G. Stockham
Jr., 70, Digital Pioneer, Dies, NY Times, Jan 31, 2004
- ART/ARCHITECTURE;
If the Museum Itself Is an Artwork, What About the Art Inside? NY Times,
Jan 25, 2004
Topics covered:
- DVD on Library of Congress
- video on Paul Otlet -- The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World
- What is the history of cultural institutions?
- How are their histories similar and different?
- How do their histories shape what an institution collects, how they
organize their collection, and how they provide access to it?
- Western civilization has relied heavily on surviving written accounts
to interpret the past. How has that affected how we see various groups
that didn't have the capability to create written accounts, or to make sure
that those accounts persist over time? Can we do more justice to those
groups by studying artifacts rather tahn written accounts?
- Is history objective?
- Museums and Libraries assert systematic organizations upon their works,
and to some degree, all knowledge. What effects does this have outside
the walls of these intsitutions? Are there both positive and negative
effects?
- Following Suzanne Briet's assertions (as cited by Buckland), does an
object have documental properties merely by moving it into a collecting institution?
Does everything collected by an institution automatically have documental
properties? Do objects outside collecting institutions have documental
properties before they enter that institution?
- Archives
- How is the origin of writing tied to the origins of record-keeping?
- If an Archive is a set of records from the past, gathered for a particular
purpose, how can archivists serve people who want to use those records for
a completely different purpose?
- Are 2 people doing research on similar topics in the same archive bound
to reach the same conclusion?
- How should archivists react to revisionist histories written based upon
records in their collections?
- What is the background/history of Archives? Why were the objects
in them collected? Who or what were the collections supposed to serve?
- Discuss Foucault's statement that the archive is "the system that establishes
statements as events and things".
- With the rise of postmodernism in the 1990s, the rift between social
and cultural historians became a wide gulf. How did one of these groups
try to assert their legitimacy?
- What do Derrida and Foucault each have to say about the archive as a
symbol or form of power?
- Steedman (discussing Derrida discussing Freud) says "The archive is
a record of the past, at the same time as it points to the future."
Discuss this.
- Museums
- What were several of the immediate ancestors of museums? How did
they differ from museums (in terms of: collection, orientation, organization,
who they were for, what stories they told, ...)
- Museums are sometimes focused on objects that are unique, and other
times on objects that are universal. How are these two foci different?
And can the same museum be focused on both at the same time?
- What type of museum may have the following words used in relation to
it: elite, connoisseurship, stuffiness, taste, reverence? Are these
accurate? Can these terms be applied to other types of collecting institutions?
- What type of museum may have the following words used in relation to
it: experience, discovery, participatory, hands-on, interactive, dialog?
Are objects important to this type of museum? What is this museum's
focus of attention?
- Hein says that both History Museums and Museums of Industry & Technology
only use the objects in their collections as support for interpretation of
human history. Is that an adequate assessment? And if so, how
does that change the role of the object and descriptive information about
it?
- Hein claims that History Museums "inhabit the ambiguous ground between
objectivity and subjectivity, where cognition and feeling, fact and value,
intermingle." She says that there is a politics to how these objects
are represented, and that a museum's choice of a narrative perspective "is
a complex judgment, arising out of political, economic, aesthetic, and practical
considerations". She contends that, using objects as a means to an end
rather than as the end itself, and incorporating them into theatrical stagings
of recreated moments of history is a fairer way than imposing meaning on object
description. Do you agree or disagree with her, and why?
- Hein makes both sociological and semiotic arguments. She says
that "museums are part of a socio-cultural system that creates and disseminates
value", that museums act to confer identity, and that the museum propagates
a system of mutual reification of subjects and objects. She also says
that the museum's role is to fix a particular type of encoded meaning into
objects, and says that the museum is part of "a signifying system that mediates
objective reality." Do you agree with her assessment? And if it
is true, how does a museum operate in a postmodern society of multiple interpretations?
- Disciplines such as art history, anthropology, and geology arose around
the same time as museums. Is there any relationship?
- What role did museums play in defining the bounds of a subset of knowledge
and how it should be organized and viewed? What is the relationship
between museums and a cannon in a particular discipline?
- Jessica Evans quotes Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach saying, "The princely
gallery spoke for and about the prince. The visitor was meant to be
impressed by the prince's virtue, taste and wealth.... But now the state,
as an abstract entity replaces the king as host. This change redefines
the visitor. He is no longer the subordinate of a prince or lord.
Now is he addressed as a citizen and therefore a shareholder in the state".
Discuss this.
- Museums came to prominence around the same time that nation-states did.
Is there a relationship? What does Jessica Evans say about museums and
the narrative of nationhood?
- Hein claims tht Bourdieu argues that "the objective of art museums
is not to induce the love of art in everyone, but to underwrite existing cultural
distinctions by 'naturlizing' a stratified culture, so that 'cultured people
can believe in barbarism and persuade the barbarians of their own barbarity'".
Do you think that this is a fair assessment of art museums?
- Hein quotes George Brown Goode, one of the Smithsonian's early curators
as contending that the museum is "a collection of instructive labels, each
illustrated by a well-selected specimen". Is this idea that the organization
and description is more important than the object itself -- is this true for
all types of collecting institutions? Is it true for any?
- Under what circumstances should museums be more concerned with objects,
and when should they be more concerned with experiences? As experience-based
exhibits become more interactive and audiences become "doers" rather than
mere "viewers", will that increase pressure for all types of culture to become
more interactive? How might this effect conventional cinema and television?
- Libraries
- When did the library world discover that their domain included more than
written material? What roles did Suzanne Briet and Paul Otlet play in
librarianship and documentation?
- Information technologists trace the conceptual origin of today's internet
world to Vannevar Bush and his writing about the hypothetical "memex".
Did these ideas really originate with Bush? What does this say about
history and myth?
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Feb 9: Types of Institutions and departments/functions within them
Assignments due before class
- Reports from visits to cultural institutions
- Read:
- Burcaw, G. Ellis (1975). "Registration and Cataloging", in Introduction
to Museum Work, Nashville: American Assn for State & Local History,
pp 84-92
- Burcaw, G. Ellis (1975). "Care of Collections", in Introduction
to Museum Work, Nashville: American Assn for State & Local History,
pp 93-99
- Burcaw, G. Ellis (1975). "Visitors and Interpretation", in Introduction
to Museum Work, Nashville: American Assn for State & Local History,
pp 135-141
- Burcaw, G. Ellis (1975). "Education and Activities", in Introduction
to Museum Work, Nashville: American Assn for State & Local History,
pp 142-145
- Burcaw, G. Ellis (1975). "Collecting Theory: General and Science
Museums", in Introduction to Museum Work, Nashville: American Assn
for State & Local History, pp 47-53
- Burcaw, G. Ellis (1975). "Collecting Theory: History Museums",
in Introduction to Museum Work, Nashville: American Assn for State
& Local History, pp 54-63
- Burcaw, G. Ellis (1975). "Collecting Theory: Art Museums", in Introduction
to Museum Work, Nashville: American Assn for State & Local History,
pp 64-83
- Malaro, Marie C. ((2002). "Legal and Ethical Foundations of Museum
Collecting Policies" in Lipinski, Tomas (ed.) Libraries, Museums, and
Archives: Legal Issues and Ethical Challenges in the New Information Era,
Lantham, MD: Scarcrow, pp 69-82
- Gates, Jean Key (1990). "Municipal Public Libraries", in Introduction
to Librarianship, 3rd Edition, NY: Neal Schuman, pp 139-152
- Gates, Jean Key (1990). "School Library Media Centers", in Introduction
to Librarianship, 3rd Edition, NY: Neal Schuman, pp 153-170
- Gates, Jean Key (1990). "Academic Libraries", in Introduction
to Librarianship, 3rd Edition, NY: Neal Schuman, pp 171-186
- Gates, Jean Key (1990). "Research Libraries", in Introduction
to Librarianship, 3rd Edition, NY: Neal Schuman, pp 187-194
- Gates, Jean Key (1990). "Special Libraries", in Introduction
to Librarianship, 3rd Edition, NY: Neal Schuman, pp 195-200
- Optional
Currrent Events
- So Many Films, but
Only a Few Are Treasures, NY Times, Feb 5, 2004
- Superbowl half-time -- Should it be preserved? In raw form?
What kinds of things should be censored in preservation efforts?
- When
a Search Engine Isn't Enough, Call a Librarian, NY Times, Feb 5, 2004
- Artist's Heirs
Sue Amsterdam Over 14 Works, NY Times, Feb 3, 2004
- "Huntington Hartford's Archive" in Arts Briefing,
NY Times, Feb 5, 2004
- Toil, Tears
and Sweat in Brooklyn, NY Times, Feb 6, 2004
- Let's
All Gather Round the Screen, NY Times, Feb 5, 2004
- For
Better HDTV Displays, It's All About the Chip, NY Times, Feb 5, 2004
- The Pornography
Industry vs. Digital Pirates, NY Times, Feb 8, 2004
- Investigators
Raid Offices of Kazaa in Australia, NY Times, Feb 7, 2004
Topics covered
- 1:00-1:30 Organization and Functions of NYU Library Departments, Guest Dr. Michael Stoller, Director of Collections & Research Services,
NYU Libraries
- Reports from Assignment #1: Visit to Cultural Institutions
- Report from Howard's visit to Florida Moving Image
Archive, Miami-Dade Public Library, and Miami Historical Museum (including
Bus Tour video)
- Warning: no class next week, and meet at Donnell Library the
following week
- How does the type of library (research, public, school) or type
of museum (history, science, art) affect its policies on collection development,
organizing, providing access, and preservation?
- What are the different departments within any type of cultural institution,
and how do they relate to one another?
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Feb 23: Ethics & Values--Mona Jimenez
Assignments due before class
- Important Note: Class will meet at 12:45 in Donnel Library Media
Center (20 W. 53rd St, betwn 5th and 6th, directly across from closed MOMA)
- Read:
- Read about the Donnell Library
Media Center
- A Code
of Ethics for Archivists with Commentary
- AIC Code of Ethics and Standards
of Practice (American Institute for the Conservation of Artistic and
Historic Works)
- Brooks, Connie, "Videotape Preservation: Ethical Considerations", Playback:
A Preservation Primer for Video, p. 18-24. On reserve in Bobst Library
and study center.
- Why Ethics?" in Marie Malaro, Museum Governance: Mission, Ethics,
Policy, pages 16-21
- Edmondson, Ray. "You Only Live Once: On Being a Troublemaking Professional", The Moving Image 2:1 (Spring 2002), pp 175-183
- International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF)Code
of Ethics ,
- Kurin, Richard. "Brokering Culture" in Reflections of a Culture
Broker: A View From the Smithsonian. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1997, pp 12-26
- Kurin, Richard. "Exhibiting the Enola Gaye" in Reflections of a
Culture Broker: A View From the Smithsonian. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1997, pp 71-82
- Krug, Judith ((2002). "Censorship and Controversial Materials
in Museums, Libraries, and Archives" in Lipinski, Tomas (ed.) Libraries,
Museums, and Archives: Legal Issues and Ethical Challenges in the New
Information Era, Lantham, MD: Scarcrow, pp 59-68
- Lipinski, Tomas A.. ((2002). "Legal aIssues Involved in the Privacy
Rights of Patrons in 'Public' Libraries and Archives" in Lipinski, Tomas
(ed.) Libraries, Museums, and Archives: Legal Issues and Ethical Challenges
in the New Information Era, Lantham, MD: Scarcrow, pp 95-112
Topics covered:
- 1-hour tour of Donnell Library Media Center by Marie Nesthus, then
back to our classroom
- Deciding on who chooses which
book to report on for the midterm assignment
- A Higher Standard, 10-minute video by American Assn of Museums,
as part of their Accreditation Resource Kit
- How do politics affect cultural heritage institutions as they strive
to serve new audiences? (the Enola Gay incident?)
- What are ethical considerations are fundamental to our work as moving
image archiving and preservation specialists?
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Mar 1: Job Roles within Cultural Institutions, Professionalism--Antonia
Lant
Assignments due before class
- Warning: Next week's class meets at AMNH
- Read:
- Look closely at Weblinks
for Professional Organizations
- The Society of American
Archivists: Description and Brief History
- So You Want to Be
an Archivist: An Overview of the Archival Profession
- Definitions Of Conservation
Terminology
- American
Library Association Preservation Policy 2001
- Magliozzi, Ronald. "Film Archiving as a Profession: An Interview with
Eileen Bowser", The Moving Image 3:1 (Spring 2003), pp 132-146
- Edmondson, Ray. A philosophy
of audiovisual archiving . General Information Programme and
UNISIST. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Paris, June 1998 ()
- "Jane R. Glaser with Artemis A. Zenetou, "Museum Professional Positions:
Qualifications, Duties, and Responsibilities," Museums: A Place to Work:
Planning Museum Careers (London; New York: Routledge, 1996), 65-125
- Libbie Rifkin, "Association/Value:
Creative Collaborations in the Library ", RBM: A Journal of Rare
Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, 2:2
- Harris, Roma M. (1992) "Pressing for change within: The professionalization
movement." Librarianship: The Erosion of a Woman's Profession,
pp. 3-21. Norwood, NJ: Ablex..
- Maack, Mary Niles. (1997) "Toward a New Model of the Information Professions:
Embracing Empowerment." Journal of Education for Library and Information
Science 38, pp. 283-302.
- Iverson, Sandy (1998/99) Librarianship and Resistence, Progressive
Librarian 15.
- California Library Association. (1992) California Intellectual
Freedom Handbook: A Manual for California Librarians. Sacramento,
CA: California Library Association, pp. 1-11.
- Kadie, C.M. (1996) "Applying Library Intellectual Freedom Principles
to Public and Academic Computers." In R. Kling (ed.), Computerization
and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices (2nd
ed.), pp. 569-579. San Diego, CA:Academic Press.
- Clement, A. (1996) "Considering Privacy in the Development of Multimedia
Communications." In R, Kling (ed.) Computerization and Controversy:
Value Conflicts and Social Choices.(2nd ed.) (pp 907-931)
San Diego CA : Academic Press.
- Weil, Stephen E. "In Pursuit of a Profession: The status of museum
work in America" in Rethinking the Museum and Other Meditations.
Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990, pp 73-94
- Changes
- Besser, Howard. (1997) The Transformation
of the Museum and the way it's Perceived,in Katherine Jones-Garmil
(ed.), The Wired Museum, Washington: American Association of Museums,
1997, pages 153-169
- Besser, Howard. (1997) The Changing
Role of Photographic Collections with the Advent of Digitization,in
Katherine Jones-Garmil (ed.), The Wired Museum, Washington: American
Association of Museums, pp. 115-127
- Besser, Howard.(1994) Fast
Forward: The Future of Moving Image Collections, in Gary Handman(ed.),
Video Collection Management and Development: A Multi-type Library Perspective,
Westport, CT: Greenwood, pp. 411-426 (online version only available
from UCLA workstations)
- Hein, Hilde S. "Introduction: From Object to Experience" in The
Museum in Transition: A Philosophical Perspective. Washington: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 2000, pp 1-16.
- Weil, Stephen E. "Rethinking the Museum: An Emerging New Paradigm"
in Rethinking the Museum and Other Meditations. Washington, D.C.
: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990, pp 57-72
- Hudson, Kenneth. "Attempts to define 'Museum'" in Boswell, David
and Jessica Evans eds. Representing the Nation: A Reader: Histories,
Heritage and Museums. New York: Routledge, 1999, pp 371-379
- Macdonald, Sharon and Roger Silverstone. "Rewriting the Museum's
Fictions: Taxonomies, stories, and readers'" in Boswell, David and Jessica
Evans eds. Representing the Nation: A Reader: Histories, Heritage and
Museums. New York: Routledge, 1999, pp 421-434
- Gates, Jean Key (1990). "Appendix II: Guides for Professional Performance",
in Introduction to Librarianship, 3rd Edition, NY: Neal Schuman,
pp 215-222
- Optional:
- Roud, Richard. A Passion for Films: Henri Langlois and the Cinémathèque
Française, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1999 (read review)
Topics covered:
- Philadelphia Stories: A Collection of Pivotal Museum Memories,
60 minute video by American Association of Museums
- Report on InterPARES meeting
- Report from
Hollywood
- Discussion of Final Projects
- What are the basic guiding principles of conservation/preservation
coming from different professions and/or communities? How were they shaped?
- How have they been utilized and/or affected by moving image and
recorded sound materials, through such factors as multiple copies, "born
digital" formats, and changing definitions of appropriate archival mediums?
- What are some of the issues that the archive, conservation, library
and independent preservation communities are addressing with regard to
moving image and sound preservation?
- What are the role(s) of a moving image specialist in relation to
other professionals caring for moving images and sound collections?
- Ray Edmundson, in A philosophy
of audiovisual archiving, proposes that moving image archiving is
evolving as a synthesis of other archiving and preservation practices.
What are the pros and cons of such an approach? What would be aspects
of this synthesis from various professions?
- Where do "de facto" archives - those organizations with important
materials but untrained as preservationists - fit?
- What is the role of producers in preservation practice?
- How do the mission, goals, history, other activities, etc., of various
repositories affect how moving images and sound are preserved and accessed?
- What are the roles of different professionals in each type of institution?
- What type of Professionalism is associated with each type of role
& each institution
- How has the role of collecting institutions changed as more and
more people have started taking photographs of everyday life? How might
changes in popular attitude towards this media effect expectations on
collecting institutions? How will collecting institutions handle personal
archives that no longer are only paper? And how will this all change even
more as the number of home video cameras and digital editing vastly increases?
- What is the impact of appraisal and selection (or the lack thereof)
on what gets preserved?
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Mar 8: Visit to American Museum of Natural History
Meet promptly at 1PM at the staff entrance of the American
Museum of Natural History (79th St & Central Park West,
below ground entrance); Barbara Mathe will be guiding us.
Assignments due before class
- Review the website for American Museum
of Natural History
- Have instructor approve of your final project topic
- Warning: no class next week, but directed readings (book reports)
for March 29
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Mar 22: Case Study of Museum Film Cataloging, Organization, and Description
Guest Speaker -- Jon Gartenberg
Assignments due before class
- Read:
- Magliozzi, Ronald. "Film Archiving as a Profession: An Interview with
Eileen Bowser", The Moving Image 3:1 (Spring 2003), pp
132-146
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Mar 29: Philosophies and Roles of Cultural Institutions & How they
differ
Assignments due before class
- Student Reports: Theoretical, Philosophica., Social, Political Issues
-- Each student will report on the
book they read, and lead a class discussion on the issues raised in
that book
- Lubar, Steven and W. David Kingery ed. History From Things: Essays
on Material Culture. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1993. (Pamela Smith)
- Rosenzweig, Roy and David Thelen eds. The Presence of the Past:
Popular Uses of History in American Life. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1998. (Margaret Mello)
- Kurin, Richard. Reflections of a Culture Broker: A View From the
Smithsonian. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.
(Jeff Martin)
- Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. Destination Culture : Tourism,
Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1998. (Huiming Yu)
- Weil, Stephen E. Making Museums Matter. Washington: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 2002. (Tanisha Jones)
- Steedman, Carolyn. Dust: The Archive and Cultural History.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002. (Irene
Taylor)
- Read:
- Douglas, Mary. (1986) "Institutions Cannot Have Minds of Their Own."
In How Institutions Think. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University
Press, pp 9-19
- Jean Baudrillard's "The System of Collecting." In John Elsner and
Roger Cardinal, eds., Cultures of Collecting, pp. 7-24. London:
Reaktion, 1994, translated by Roger Cardinal.
- Bourdieu, Pierre. (1993)"The Field of Cultural Production." In The
Field of Cultural Production. New York : Columbia University
Press. 1993, pp. 29-73.
- Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett "Objects of Ethnography" in Kirshenblatt-Gimblett,
Barbara. Destination Culture : Tourism, Museums, and Heritage.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, pages 17-78 [preferably
not the version in Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine (eds.) Exhibiting
Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, Washington:
Smithsonian Press, 1991, pp 386-443]
- Weil, Stephen E. "The Proper Business of the Museum: Ideas
or Things?" in Rethinking the Museum and Other Meditations. Washington,
D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990, pp 43-56
- Prown, Jules David. "The Truth of Material Culture: History
or Fiction?" in Lubar, Steven and W. David Kingery ed. History From
Things: Essays on Material Culture. Washington: Smithsonian Institution
Press, 1993, pp 1-19
- Shuman, Bruce A. (1992) "Libraries and information in
Society", in Foundations and Issues in Library and Information Science,
Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, pp 1-7
- Shuman, Bruce A. (1992) "General Issues for Libraries
and Inormation Centers", in Foundations and Issues in Library and
Information Science, Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, pp 26-42
- Orphan Film Symposium. What is an Orphan Film?
plus these 1999 Orphans Symposium papers:
- Optional
- Putnam, Robert (1995) Bowling
Alone: America's Declining Social Capital, Journal of Democracy
6:1, Jan 1995, 65-78
- Lievrouw, L.A. (1994) "Information Resources and Democracy: Understanding
the Paradox." Journal of the American Society for Information
Science, 45(6), July, pp. 350-357.
- Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright in Practices of Looking: An
Introduction to Visual Culture (Oxford University Press, 2001)
- Benjamin, Walter. "Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting."
Illuminations. Ed. and intro. by Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry
Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1969, pp 59-67
- Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Illuminations. Ed. and intro. by Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry
Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1969, pp 217-251
- John Berger. Ways of Seeing , New York: Viking, 1972
Topics covered:
- Why do we collect?
- Extensive
questions to ponder
- Issues of evidence and authenticity
- Issues of representation
- Who collects what? for whom? and why? How do collections
define their collectors? How have museums influenced colonialism,
nationalism, and taxonomies (categories) of knowledge? What kinds
of interdependence exists between institutions of collecting and certain
methodological goals of art history and anthropology? How can
we learn to read exhibits critically? What is a "rhetoric"or "poetics"
of display? Why do people keep personal collections of objects?
How do ethnicities and genders appear--or disappear--in museum contexts?
How do museums also function to support a local community memory and
history? How do artists view museums as social institutions?
How can we imagine collecting practices and museums in the future? How
can the history of collecting be read as an interdisciplinary intellectual
practice?
- Why do we need museums? What should they look like?
Why do we collect things? What kinds of museums and collections
might we have in the future? What role might electronic media
play in the rethinking of the museum? Would changes in museum
practice necessitate changes in the disciplines of art history
and anthropology?
- How are moving images and sound part of the larger visual culture
and ways of looking and seeing? How does our understanding of visual
culture impact our role in moving image archiving and preservation?
- Who attributes value to a work, and under what circumstances?
How does one deal with the different values that different communities
may have towards any particular set of works?
- Are there ethical considerations in format conversions (e.g.,
film colorization, pan-and-scan?)
- Continutation of discussion from previous week
- What will be the orphans in media other than film (video, new media,
electronic art, conceptual art, web-based works, games, etc.)?
- Who shoud take responsibility for Orphan films, videos, new media?
- Discussion of Final Projects
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Apr 12 Processes: Budgeting, Fundraising, Project Management
Guest Speaker -- Sarah Himmelfarb
Assignments due before class
- Read:
- "Controlled Collecting: Drafting a Collection Management Policy" in Marie
Malaro, Museum Governance: Mission, Ethics, Policy , pages 43-49
Topics covered:
-
You will learn to:
- define projects you may want to do in your professional workplace
- work up budgets and workplans
- argue the importance of their projects to others in their organization
- do public relations outside your organization
- find external funding sources (grants, wealthy donors, their own income-generating
activities, more innovative sources, ...)
- find volunteers and work with them
- manage projects once you receive funding
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Apr 26 The Future: How do things change in a digital world?
Assignments due before class
- View video Into the Future: On the Preservation of Knowledge in
the Digital Age. Available at the Bobst Library and in the Film Study Center.
- Read:
- Jorge Luis Borges, The Library
of Babel , from Labyrinths (or The Book of Sand) (see review
)
- Besser, Howard. (1998) The Shape of the
21st Century Library, in Milton Wolf et. al. (eds.), Information
Imagineering: Meeting at the Interface, Chicago: American Library Association,
pp. 133-146
- Besser, Howard.(1995) From Internet
to Information Superhighway, in James Brook and Iain A.Boal (eds.),
Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information,
San Francisco: City Lights, pp. 59-70.
- Besser, Howard. (1994) "Movies-on-demand
May Significantly Change the Internet", ASIS Bulletin 20
(7), Oct/Nov, pp. 15-17
- Anne J. Gilliland-Swetland. Enduring Paradigm, New
Opportunities: The Value of the Archival Perspective in the Digital Environment , Council on Library & Information Resources, pub89, pp 1-16 [document
pages 1-16, not Acrobat pages 1-16]
- Steve Dietz, Howard Besser, Kati Geber. The
Virtual Museum: The Next Generation. Feb 2004 report to Canadian
Heritage Information Network
- Borgman, Christine.(2000) The Premise and Promise
of a Global Information Infrastructure. First Monday, 5:8, August
2000
- Woodbury, Marsha ((2002). "The Fight of the Century? Informatiion
Ethics versus E-Commerce" in Lipinski, Tomas (ed.) Libraries, Museums,
and Archives: Legal Issues and Ethical Challenges in the New Information Era,
Lantham, MD: Scarcrow, pp 177-192
- Besser, Howard (June 2002). Commodification of Culture
Harms Creators, The Information Commons, New Technology, and the Future
of Libraries, vol 1, issue 1, American Library Association
- Readings on the InterPARES
2 project
- National Digital Information
Infrastructure and Preservation Program
Topics covered:
- Report on FIAF meeting
- How do reformatting and multiple formats of the same work change
how we look at a work? (e.g., are videos the same as films? Are digital
photographs the same as analog photos?)
- Is there a social context to viewing an object? (is viewing a video
at home the same as viewing a film in a theater? Is viewing a mural on
a screen the same as viewing it in-situ?)
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May 3: Final Classroom Presentations
Assignments due before class
- Be prepared to present your final project to the rest of the class
Topics covered:
- Final Individual presentations
Major Assignments
Visit Cultural Institutions: Visit at least 2 cultural institutions
for at least 45 minutes each. In each institution, observe what people
do there: what they look at, what they consult or read, who they talk with,
how much time they spend with artifacts, how long they stay in one place,
etc. Note what time of day and day of week you visited, and hypothesize
how things might be different at different times. Compare what happens
in each of the places you visit. Write a 2-5 page paper with your observations,
and present this in class.
Lead a short class discussion based on readings: Read one book
(
from
list). Sumarize the ideas in an oral class presentation (approximately
10 minutes), and then lead a 15 minute class discussion on the issues you've
raised.
Individual Final Project -- student choice, but must be related to
something covered during the semester: A major term project. Topic
must be approved by the instructors by March 8. Must be presented in class during
the last class session. Here are a few examples:
- Write a paper comparing and contrasting the differences btwn 2 types
of institutions (eg. A public library and a state Historical Archive), and
how institutional differences affect moving image archival practice (acquisition,
cataloging, access, restoration, ...)
- Compare how a film or video collection in one type of institution might
be handled differently or similarly to an identical collection residing
in a different type of institution.
- Examine the history of a particular institution with a moving image collection.
Look at what kinds of elements shaped it into what it is today. Pay
particular attention to the type of organization and mission, how the division
of labor changed over time due to individual skills or institutional focus,
the effects of changes in the outside field, and external social and political
effects.
- Work with a local cultural institution to scope out a project that they
want to do. Produce a project plan and a budget. Examine possible
funding agencies. Write a grant proposal, ...
- Plan an exhibition series for historic moving image material. Plan a
publicity campaign, coordinate with tie-in activities or events, figure
out a workable budget, determine how to use volunteers, ...
- Due dates -- Topic approval Mar 8; present in class and turn in written
version May 3
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Version 7.7