Words on Pictures

     Romana Javitz (1903-1980), a visionary in the use of visual resources, led the New York Public Library's Picture Collection from 1929 to 1968. Her pioneering work laid the foundation for using pictures as factual documents rather than simply as artistic representations. Javitz’s approach emphasized the utility of images for educational, historical, and cultural documentation, distinguishing her from traditional views that regarded pictures primarily as objects of aesthetic appreciation.    Javitz inherited the Picture Collection during a time of rising demand for accessible images due to the growth in publishing, advertising, and design industries. She championed a unique cataloging approach, moving beyond artist or aesthetic categorization to organizing images by subject. This shift allowed diverse users—from artists to historians—to access visual materials tailored to their functional needs. Javitz’s inclusive and non-judgmental cataloging reflected her belief that images fr

Rothman's Pawn Shop, 149 Eighth Avenue. 1938. Berenice Abbott. Changing New York  #297.026   Words on Pictures: Romana Javitz and the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection , is an anthology of writings by Romana Javitz(1903-1980) that also includes three interviews in which she expounds on the use of pictures, especially photographs, as a tool for documentation. When pictures enter the Picture Collection for circulation they are analyzed for their subject content first and foremost. Subsequently, Javitz and her highly trained staff assign a subject heading that most defines the visible content that dominates or best illustrates what is in the image. With this approach, photographs to be used in the Picture Collection are often washed clean of the photographers or the publisher’s intent. Under this rubric a photograph clipped from a magazine or newspaper can have just as much impact as a fine platinum print if its content clearly defines or illustrates a subject or subjects w

 The Picture Collection began a Source Card file in 1929, soon after Romana Javitz became supervisor. It is still maintained today and is a rich resource, not just for tracing the original maker of a print or photo found in the files but also from an historical perspective .  In addition to provenance, the cards reveal many of the addresses of the contributors, some only blocks away from the Picture Collection at 42nd and Fifth Avenue.   Here is just a small sample from A to M of the variety of Source Card files documenting the Journals, Magazines and Serials that were clipped for circulation. Capitalized alpha indicators were written on the clipped images for tracing the source.   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) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Language of the Public "The thing is I decided that the classes of the John Cotton Dana classification just could not serve an artist public, or a general public...  so the thing is that I became convinced that an A-to-Z file would not serve  the public. That a simple alphabetic arrangement, such as Newark had, did not  group the material logically from its visual contents.  I decided then that the only thing to do would be to begin recording the language of the public in asking for the pictures, and that was begun as soon as I took over. Since there was no catalog of subject headings available, there was no catalog of subject headings at all by the way, since there was no catalog when the borrower came in he used his own language, and that language could be analyzed and those (became) headings.  At first it was used to show the trends and needs to guide the buying. Then it became obvious to me that unless we set up a subject heading scheme based on the lan guage used by the p