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Reflections on digitising the tear sheets in the Walt Reed Illustration Archive
Journal of Digital Media Management,
11
(4),
310-323
(2023)
Abstract
The D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library is a repository of primary source materials that supports faculty scholarship and teaching in the field of visual culture. One of its cornerstone collections is the Walt Reed Illustration Archive, which consists of materials amassed at Illustration House, a business founded around collecting and selling key pieces of narrative art, in addition to related materials, of some of the most notable illustrators of the 20th century. The materials in this collection were used to create a publicly accessible digital collection of over 150,000 assets. Administrative metadata have been added to the collection, but work has been ongoing to enhance the descriptive metadata, which is crucial for research and discovery. Presently, only 30,000 records contain fully descriptive data. This paper discusses the challenges and successes of the project, as well as the innovative systems created to enhance image records and increase accessibility.
Keywords: archival collections; discovery; illustration; metadata; special collections
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Andrea Degener is a visual materials processing archivist in Washington University Libraries’ Special Collections. Her role involves working predominantly with materials in the Rare Books and the D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library (DMGHL) collections while overseeing a team of two staff and numerous graduate students. Her most recent projects include the re-description and processing of over 5,000 comic books, processing hundreds of original pieces of artwork from a recent acquisition, and managing various processing activities for the visual collections in conjunction with her team. She has processed collections that include original works of art by some of the most notable illustrators and graphic artists of the 20th century. She also works largely with periodicals and tear sheets in addition to other mass-produced reproductions of illustrated works. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Illinois State University, an MFA in visual art from Washington University in St. Louis and master of library and information science degree from the University of Missouri. Andrea’s professional aim is to provide increased access and longevity of the collections through accurate and detailed description of archival collections, proper housing and care of various material formats, and a continued effort to digitise, publish and catalogue the distinct holdings found in the DMGHL repository.
Skye Lacerte is an archivist who has served as Curator of the D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library (DMGHL) at Washington University in St. Louis since 2008. She works with original materials made by some of the 19th and 20th century’s most well-known illustrators and graphic artists, and has consistently increased holdings, expanding the library from six collections to over 70. She has also led numerous projects to increase visibility and accessibility of the DMGHL’s collections, including the digitisation of the Walt Reed Illustration Archive. Skye studied art history at UC Irvine and went on to earn a master’s degree in library and information science at San Jose State University. Skye’s goal is to elevate the visibility of the DMGHL as well as the legitimacy of visual culture in meaningful scholarship.
