Words on Pictures

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

Marion . Subject heading: Curiosity. engraving, ca. 1850. Stahlstich v. Carl Mayer’s Kunst-Anstalt in Nürnberg. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. Curious? For the nominal cost of $4.99 you can get the ebook Words on Pictures: Romana Javitz and the New York Public Library's Picture Collection.  Covering the years 1916 to 1965, Words on Pictures is an excellent resource for the study of the use and dissemination of printed visual resources during of the age of photo-mechanical reproduction.   The story of the Picture Collection cannot be told without the story of Romana Javitz (1903-1980) who was head of the Picture Collection from 1928-1968. A pioneering librarian whose career spans the rise of print media, cinema and the mass circulation of illustrated magazines and newspapers across the globe. In three interviews included in the publication Javitz reveals a mastery of the semantics of photograp

    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 i n 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 i n 1941, insisted that she would need to first write: “a comprehensive

Reading war news aboard streetcar. San Francisco, California. 1941.  John Collier.  The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York  Public Library. Pictures at War Did you know that the New York Public Library's Picture Collection was a key resource for the Armed Forces during World War II? Here is an excerpt from the Annual Report for 1943: "The enemy loomed large as the most popular subject in picture requests during the year. Since a soldier is taught to bayonet the enemy and not some undefined abstraction, he must learn to recognize that enemy; a bombardier must be able to visualize the appearance of the factory which is to be his target; a designer of camouflage must have the specific knowledge of the shape of forests in the battle area as seen from the air. War leaders require pictorial surveys preceding decisions of strategy and action. Direct information for the use of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps was supp

Reaching the People: The Picture Collection's Farm Security Administration Photographs Grandmother from Oklahoma and her pieced quilt. California, Kern County (1936). Dorothea Lange (1895-1965). This Dorothea Lange photograph is one of several carefully selected images from the Farm Security Administration series that are reproduced in my new book, Words on Pictures: Romana Javitz and the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection. (Photo|Verso: New York) Javitz was a close friend and colleague of the head of the FSA’s Historical Section, Roy D. Stryker. Stryker’s mission was to get the photographs of the conditions wrought by the Great Depression out to the public and the Picture Collection was the perfect venue. Not only did over 40,000 photos eventually find their way into the circulating stock, complete exhibitions were also prepared and distributed throughout the NYPL Branches, department stores and other sites. In one instance Stryker assembled a large print ex

Cinema and the Document "The slow appreciation of the cinema as an art form may be laid at the oversight of dual but compatible functions of all art, of all pictorial productions. While the moving pictures document and record realistically that which we have seen, experienced and heard, nevertheless they are designed and produced under the same basic principles which condition all other types if pictorial composition. Consideration of any film discovers that the amount of story-telling elements and the subjective content is slight when compared to the amount of production craftmanship required to make the finished work. Photography in the moving film form has within its projected image every element of art, merged into a whole by editing, direction and conception of the relations of time sequences of events portrayed, of images moving and the balance of tone, light, sound and shape. And just as other art forms, moving pictures are good sources for facts... All films,

The history of the use of visual mateials and photography in the arts, the sciences and in commerce cannot be told without Romana Javitz and the story of her 40-year career as the supervisor of the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection.  The New York Public Library’s Picture Collection has been circulating photographs, clippings, prints and postcards to the public for over 105 years. It is a free picture reference service used by many important industries that need visual resources for their work.  Still operating out of t he Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at 42 nd  Street,   the Picture Collection remains an important resource for teachers and historians, designers and illustrators, as well as artists and photographers. It is, at almost 1.5 million images, considered an encyclopedia of pictures that encapsulates the age of mechanical reproduction.  The texts presented in Words on Pictures highlight the career of Javitz, who, as superintendent of the Picture

  NYPL Picture Collection Source Files   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) Picture Collection Source Files The Picture Collection began sourcing their files soon after Javitz became its Superintendent in 1929.  If an illustration was clipped from a book or portfolio the plate would be assigned a Source Number which would lead you back to a catalog card listing its provenance, bibliographic information, or if it was a gift or purchase.  Today this source file index and its accompanying index to periodicals that have been clipped are valuable research tools. Courtesy, New York Public Library, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. Picture Collection. #photography, #visual arts, #photographers, #visualresources, #librarians, #documentation

  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) An eye for history... [Vaudeville Theater advertising the silent movie Tigris next to the Brill Building at 46 Broadway, Times Square.] c.1913. Yampolsky Collection     Many illustrations found throughout the forthcoming book Words on Pictures are drawn from Romana Javitz's personal collection (cited as the Yampolsky Collection) of prints, photographs and ephemera. Here is an early view of Broadway in Times Square. ca. 1913. Note the Brill Building at right.   ~~~~~ One of the most critical quotes from the 1933 Annual Report to the Director sums up the contributions it provided going into the tumultuous Great Depression. It is only a harbinger to come for future decades of service to its consumers of visual documentati