The Carnegie Corporation Grant: The Organization of Pictures as Documents, 1941-42

 

 

Newsstand, 32nd Street and Third Avenue, Manhattan.

(1935). Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division

of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public

Library. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-4f7ea3d9-

e040-e00a18064a99 Image ID 482798

By 1941 Romana Javitz was at the top of her field and was known world-wide as an authority on the use of pictorial materials. Many institutions, cultural organizations and corporations began clamoring for guidelines to organize their own burgeoning collections of visual materials. So in 1941, NYPL director Harry M. Lydenberg approached the Carnegie Corporation for funds to allow Javitz time off from her regular duties to craft a manual for the classification and arrangement of picture collections. In order to proceed, Javitz, writing to Franklin F. Hopper, who succeeded Lydenberg as director in 1941, insisted that she would need to first write:

“a comprehensive presentation of the background of the subject content of pictures...

and provide a formulation of a theory of organization for printed pictures.”1

The Organization of Pictures as Documents is the result. Here is an excerpt where she convincingly makes the case that pictures should be given equal consideration when it came to documentation of any kind.

"Descriptions in words suggest but do not give concrete form to an idea. Libraries

must accept the responsibility for supplying the general public and the artists and

teachers with information that only pictures can give. Pictures as sources of information

and stimulation must be accorded proper recognition. Since copies today can

be and are cheaply and freely available through reproduction by photo-mechanical

processes, every library should maintain pictorial files for the use of its public.

By that we do not mean pretty or decorative pictures, but pictures from a mature

point of view, arising from respect for their established place as an influence of great

potentiality in our thinking, activity and culture. Pictorial visualization should no

longer be handled as illustrations for children only, they must be considered now

as important, indispensable adjuncts to books. It is time that we recognize the

full status of their inherent value as reference tools. They are important for every

member of our community.

It is not enough for a library to boast of the illustrations in its book stock. And

indexes to pictures in its catalogues. Separate pictures must be included to give the

users of the library full pictorial experience. It is impossible to evoke the appearance

of any picture by reading a catalogue card; at its best a descriptive card gives

nothing but a vague list of specific items in a picture without giving the form of

what is depicted. The only pictorial index that would function successfully, although

meagerly, as a substitute for the original illustration would be one in which a copy

of the indexed picture appeared on the index card.

Although a book becomes out of date, or its text outlives its usefulness, the illustrations

often remain valid indefinitely. It is important to keep this in mind and learn to

use illustration that have appeared in ephemeral or outdated texts. In all times since

the beginning of printing, the production and distribution of copies of illustrations,

the pictures in book and broadside, in the pages of fashion, in caricature and in

scientific literature, have wielded a deep penetrating power over all kinds of people."

Chapter 4, The Organization of Pictures as Documents. pages 59-99

Words on Pictures: Romana Javitz and the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection

Anthony T. Troncale. New York: PhotoVerso Publications, LLC, 2020.

 Words on Pictures: Romana and the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection. edited by Anthony T. Troncale. New York: Photo | Verso Publications, LLC, 2020.   ISBN 978-1-7346409-0-8 (hardcover)  Identifiers ISBN  978-1-7346409-1-5 (ebook)

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