February 18, 2010
Cataloging Workshop
Posted by Arden Kirkland under Presentation, Workshop | Tags: ArtStor, Brooklyn Museum, cataloging, Krick, Workshop |[11] Comments
It’s hard to believe, but our second workshop has already come and gone! On Friday, February 12th, we welcomed Jessa Krick to lead our workshop about cataloging of historic costume. Ms. Krick currently works with Historic Hudson Valley, and was formerly a Senior Research Assistant for the Costume Documentation Project for the Brooklyn Museum.
After a brief round of introductions, Ms. Krick shared her presentation entitled “Object Cataloging: Idea and Practice.” She provided some background about the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection, and then described the process undertaken for the Costume Documentation Project. Her presentation included many images of objects selected as highlights of the project, and photographed and documented for ArtStor. She provided several very helpful examples of catalog entries for objects in the Brooklyn collection, to help guide our process.
Next we took a brief cookie break, and then returned for some hands-on work with object cataloging. Ms. Krick worked with a two-piece dress from our collection to develop a catalog entry, getting students involved along the way, both in terms of remembering the best practice she had indicated in her presentation, and examining the object in detail. The piece chosen was found to have been significantly re-styled for use as a theatrical costume before it was removed from the theatrical stock and placed in the historic collection. While this aspect was frustrating at times, this made it an excellent subject for thorough investigation.
In the days since Ms. Krick’s visit, we have already implemented some changes in our procedure, as inspired by her presentation. We have started cataloging the more recent objects in our collection, and plan to work backwards in time, as Ms. Krick explained they had done with the Brooklyn project. This is a very helpful approach, allowing all of us to take some time to perfect our cataloging technique with more familiar objects before moving on to the many complicated late nineteenth and early twentieth century pieces we have in the collection.
We all learned a great deal from Ms. Krick, and we’re very appreciative for the time she spent with us.
Now we have several weeks of cataloging and condition reporting ahead. Please “stay tuned” to see what objects we unearth in the coming weeks!
February 18th, 2010 at 11:25 am
I really enjoyed Jessa’s workshop! She had valuable and practical suggestions for us, and the Brooklyn project looked really amazing.
One thing that i thought was especially noteworthy from Friday was our conversation about deaccessioning. I don’t think that this was something we had talked about as together as a group before, and I think it was valuable to know that deaccessioning is a possibility. It’s often difficult to consider when working with the objects because each piece seems so integral, but deaccessioning would allow us to keep out special pieces in better conditions, and maybe even raise some funds from sales.
February 18th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
I thought it was particularly interesting when Jessa spoke about how years ago the Brooklyn Museum had a design laboratory where designers were allowed to actually get their hands on old clothing and costumes for inspiration. I think that method of actually being up close with historical objects is really valuable in learning about the past. Which is why I think that we are really lucky to be able to get up close with historical garments in this class. As someone mentioned in a different post, I think continuing some sort of class like this in the upcoming years where students can closely inspect our collection to learn about its history would be a great idea.
February 18th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
I also enjoyed this workshop immensely, and found it helpful. Cataloging the more recent pieces has been good; we’re definitely getting the hang of things better. The idea of storing some of the items hanging up instead of all in boxes is going to be very helpful to us in the long run, as our space is so limited. The same goes for deaccessioning.
I think, from the two labs I’ve done with the new system in place, that teams of three instead of two might be better, at least when it comes to those of us who, like me, aren’t that well-versed in materials, styles, and construction techniques. That way, there’s someone to catalog, someone to deal with the computer database and look at reference materials, and someone directly handling the garment (and three opinions instead of just two). Others may disagree with me, of course.
February 18th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
What was so interesting about the piece that we chose to work with while Jessa was here was that it had been altered greatly in its time as an active costume piece at Vassar. This was good fun because of the mystery involved in parsing exactly what had been added based on the clues from the fibers and the construction of the piece. This also made us question what made a piece valuable specifically in the case of the Vassar collection. While being altered in any case might make a piece less useful or notable in another collection, for a piece to have been altered for a past Vassar production might offer its own story–two in fact. As we go through the collection and find more pieces that have been altered for dramatic purposes it might be worth while to explore the circumstances that led to the change as well as its original provenance. The plays that they were chosen for might speak to the way that people have interpreted historical periods over time, like historiography in costume. All of these objects were meant to be used, so we should take the time to consider all of their roles.
February 19th, 2010 at 11:08 am
It’s been really interesting already to have two different guest speakers with such different perspectives – on a personal level, it’s really helped me to figure out what aspects of the project I think I am most interested in (restoration). I agree with Julie – the thought of deaccessioning had not crossed my mind before Jessa’s workshop, and for the limited space and resources we have at the moment, that definitely seems to be an important solution to some of our problems. I think it will also help us to really narrow the focus of what we want the collection to be, and ultimately make the collection stronger, as it will be less diluted, so to speak, by items that aren’t as relevant to our goals and interests.
On the other hand, having a lot of objects seems like a really positive feature for an educational collection, so it occurred to me: If, in the process of deaccessioning we come across a variety of objects that are in decent condition and are not rare finds, particularly ones that don’t take up a lot of room, it might be worth it to set aside some of the garments for inspection/education purposes, keeping in mind that they will be “deaccessioned” and therefore not stored and cared for with the same degree of meticulousness as the collection is. Not sure whether or not this is a feasible or even attractive thought but it is something that occurred to me.
February 19th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
I also think the cataloging procedure we have now implemented as a result of Jessa Krick’s workshop is really allowing us to add some important descriptive elements to the database. I think it will be important, though, to determine for our own collection some type of more specific guidelines about our own judgments of whether to deaccession, study, or keep pieces as highlights. Today while cataloging during my lab time, I didn’t really feel comfortable making a recommendation for any of the pieces I looked at to be in the deaccession or highlight categories. I don’t feel that I have enough of a sense of the whole collection to make a claim about redundancy, and I don’t know if excellent garment condition is enough to warrant a highlight. Plus, I don’t want to deaccession anything! I’m sure we’ll all get more comfortable with this the more we work with the collection, but I think trying to establish some sort of clearer guidelines for this type of thing for our collection specifically would be worthwhile for us to do together. Despite this issue, the way in which Ms. Crick taught us to catalog things is really helpful for getting me more familiar with types of fabrics, weaves and silhouettes, so I think it’s a good thing for all of us to do to understand our collection better!
February 21st, 2010 at 12:47 pm
i definitely agree that after this last workshop we have been getting the hang of things much better in our labs, and i really feel like the real work has finally begun! But just some things i noticed while working in labs this week that we may want to work on in the future in order to make things run even more smoothly: First, its a little confusing how the cataloging worksheet that we have doesn’t exactly match the form in the database, and though i think we have figured it out now, the discrepancy, and figuring working out what exactly went in each box took away from some of our valuable lab time. Also, with all the different lab groups in and out of the shop, sometimes it gets hard to keep track of what exactly each pile created by the last group was for, or which piles have been cataloged. And my last thought is how, mid week it seems we started filling out more of the form. For example, in my Monday lab we didn’t take measurements, but on Friday we did. Should we be going back to those other pieces and filling in the missing info, so all the garments have the same amount of stuff filled out? Can’t wait for labs next week, and getting to work with some of the older pieces!
February 21st, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Thanks, Anne – the lab time goes by so fast, so comments like this are really helpful for me to keep on top of the evolution of our procedure! OK – First, as for the worksheet versus the database, you’ll have to show me what you mean. Next, as for the objects left out, we’ll all have to do a better job of labeling each pile for the next group. Finally, as for the measurements, we won’t go back to those objects, but we’ll definitely perform that step on future objects.
February 21st, 2010 at 11:12 pm
I think looking at the Brooklyn Museum as a model was extremely helpful for us on a number of levels. On the practical level, I feel I finally understand how to fill out the cataloging information. The demonstration on a garment with such a colorful history was particularly helpful. Also, hearing about how they chose which garments to keep as highlights or for study verse what they chose to deaccession was useful as well.
The workshop also reminded me of something I had been considering earlier in the week. The Brooklyn museum saw it fit to enter into a unique relationship with the Met as the final destination for their collection. In another one of my classes, I have been working with some of the objects in the Lehman Loeb and have had the opportunity to visit their storage, which is beautifully equipped. I understand that a similar relationship to that between the Brooklyn Museum and the Met is not possible for this collection and the Loeb for a variety of reasons, but I cannot help but wonder if some level of collaboration might be possible and beneficial.
Also, I agree with Leksi. I found the idea of designers coming into the museum to study the garments really interesting, and to me that encapsulates the main purpose of a historical collection.
February 28th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
I really liked that Jessa suggested that we tailor our cataloging sheet to the needs of our collection. We certainly have unique pieces with unique problems, such as severe altering. Perhaps we could create a category on the database where we could mark if a piece seems altered for costume purposes, or if it seems like it has stayed true to its original design. This way we (and other scholars) could search for pieces that have been unaltered and filter out pieces that would look deceivingly unaltered in a picture.
Also, now that it has been a few weeks since we did the workshop with Jessa, I really think everyone is hitting their stride and focus. However, I do think that sometimes the groups can end up unbalanced, with one group having several people who have experience identifying textiles, and another group who has to work quite slowly because they are still building a repertoire of textile knowledge. Perhaps we could work towards this so that we can speed up our pace.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:31 pm
One of the things that I hadn’t really considered until the Jessa Krick workshop, was hanging some of our more stable pieces. While this wouldn’t necessarily take up less space than the boxes (as I learned in a restoration manual that Arden recently showed me), it would remove the PRESSURE of being stored in a box. If we can prevent creases and wrinkles before they start we have a greater chance of preserving these pieces for longer.
I agree with Alyssa that we seem to be much more productive with our documentation. There still seems to be some discrepancy in our description format – especially in terms of the level of detail. Hopefully as we read one another’s descriptions and condition reports, we will develop a much more standardized format for this.