#libraryresearch

Before there was HOLLIS, researchers used to find books in the Fine Arts Library by using the card catalog. Some of our staff remember them very well! Mary Jane Cuneo, senior serials cataloger who works on FAL materials, shared the following memory:

“I have to admit, I was there as a cataloger at the time of card catalogs. We typed subject headings on cards we had ordered from the Library of Congress, on a typewriter equipped with a card platen to hold the card steady; and used the red-ink part of the ribbon.

Students would interfile new cards “above the rod” and a supervisor would drop them after checking the filing by pulling out the rod and re-inserting it. To correct an error printed or typed on a card, we used a beast of a thing: the electric eraser. It was really heavy.

Also in our toolkit was a razor blade, to scrape and scratch away the unwanted text. When I started at the Fine Arts Library as a library assistant in 1976, this was part of my job. Truly amazing how far things have come!”

The first photograph dates from 1952 when our library was located within the Fogg Art Museum. The second photograph shows the card catalog for auction sales catalogs that we still have at the library. And the last image? An electric eraser.

Image description:

Image 1: A woman hunching over card catalogs on a pulled-out drawer of the card catalog cabinets. Card catalog cabinets stand against the wall on the right.

Image 2: Tinted photograph of a close-up view of card catalogs in the drawer.

Image 3: Photo of the electric eraser

Image 1: Fogg Art Museum. Interior, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States Fine Arts Library. Visual Collections. Card catalog, photographed ca.1980s. Sculpture at left is Marino Marini's "Horse and Rider", 1952, from the Harvard Art Museum's collection  Author/Creator Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [architect] HOLLIS number: olvsite34738

edward burtynsky

here i refer back to the work of burtynsky after looking at his ‘anthropocene’ book in the library. i am not so much inspired by his composition for this particular project, as he takes his images from a ‘birds-eye’ view which captures the landscape on a wide scale. He does this in order to gain a vast view of the environment to represent how huge our impact as humans really is. I am more inspired by how he documents this information about the anthropocene and visually represents how we have completely altered and destroyed the landscape for our own benefit. in his book, he includes small chapters, he categorises the type of impact or the reason for the landscape being altered in this way. he then, on the opposite side of the page to the large image, explains in detail what is going on in that particular area, and why it looks like that. the project is so well informed that it simply cannot be ignored or disregarded. it describes why we alter the landscape in this way then confronts you with the reality of this on the opposite page, a clever and effective way of laying out the book. his layout has inspired me a lot when thinking of the creation of my own publication. at the beginning and end of the book he has included some essays, which are on completely different paper to the rest, this paper felt somewhat rougher and harder. this particular paper inspired me to think about recycled paper, and incorporating sustainability and environmentally friendly aspects into the actual creation of my own publication. this will match the content that is inside, adding to the impact and overall aesthetic, in an attempt to influence change

‘to a world that is felt to have been lost to us, the landscape can provide a healing element, and the gulf between nature and civilisation that has been exacerbated by industrialisation becomes bearable’

‘there no longer seems to be a single untouched plot of land on earth. and even if man has yet to set foot on a tiny section of our planet, his very existence and his actions have already impinged on our whole biosphere’

‘as an image of nature, the landscape can no longer be conceived of as independent of humankind but is always something that we ourselves have created’

(here can relate the aspect of photography to preservation)

‘we need to rethink our entire energy system from scratch in order to bring about real change. our industrial metabolism needs to be rethought’

- joachim schellnhube, of the postdam institute for climate impact research

‘landscape becomes the window of our relationship with reality, images of landscape becoming a reflection of ourselves’

‘ultimately all we can do is hope that by viewing these images we shall finally come to our senses’

this book introduces you to the work of photographers, and the different ways they take up the challenge of photographing the changing climate and how they each individually choose to communicate this catastrophe to the viewer. some confront us by documenting the graphic brutality, whilst others aestheticise the issue, with the caption making the situation clear

‘quite clearly it enables us to experience things that otherwise appear to have long been contaminated by mechanical reproduction... perhaps why walter benjamin defined one of his key concepts - aura - by the means of the image of a landscape’

I took a look at a book by Angharad Lewis: So you want to publish a magazine?

I got really inspired by a lot of things I found in there, here are some quotes that stood out for me:

It’s for school. 

Pentax Calendar, 1980 by Guy Bourdin

In the photo you can see an elegant, clean room. It is probably night, because the place is a bit dark. There is an interesting light coming from the right side of the image. Perhaps it is a car going by and the car lights are coming through the window, which makes a picture look gloomy, and creates shadows, although the photo in general is not highly contrasted. There are grey/blue toned four chairs and a sofa, they are kind of baroque-ish, luxury furniture, made of silk fabric, so the light coming on them makes it look expensive and gives to the photo some Hollywood glamour look. When you first see the photograph, you notice two things. The first one is a woman, who’s wearing black, silky material dress, her lips are red, she has dark hair. Her face is quite intense, her hands are roughly grabbing a head of a figure, it is not really clear if it is a man or a woman. The silhouette is also wearing a black, shiny material. He/she is bending down on knees. The woman’s face and the figure’s posture makes it look erotic. The second thing you notice is the fallen chair in the right corner. It gives the image more sexuality, wildness.