Collections | c u r i o

How do you solve a problem like a foldout?

December 13, 2013 by lelgin | 5 Comments

When assessing how to photograph a book, we must first make several determinations. The key to photographing books well – by which I mean providing well-lit images, in good focus, without damaging the book or its pages – is to provide as much support as possible to both the book itself (especially the spine) as well as to each individual page. Evaluating the needs of a book requires that we look at the following criteria:

Size of book
Condition of book and its pages
Characteristics of leaves (plates, text, foldouts or tipped-in pages)

Smaller books in good condition are photographed on a glass cradle that allows us to hold the book open for optimal photography, but supports the spine and keeps the book in good condition. Larger or more fragile books are shot on a wooden cradle, which supports the book and its spine without putting any pressure on the pages. This requires additional work to get each page flat; some curvature is acceptable, but too much creates focus problems so we often add foam supports under parts of a page to keep it even.

This is a page with a small, minor foldout. Set in the wooden cradle, you can see the book as it’s shot, the nook that the book and page fit into with full support beneath them, and finally, the wood and foam supports that made it all possible.

Then we have books that hit the challenging-to-shoot trifecta: they are oversize, have some element of fragility to them, and the plates involve spreads or foldouts that require even more supports and careful handling (and a sharp eye on even lighting and focus). I spent the past couple of weeks photographing just such a book: an oversize book of engravings that is in generally good condition, but whose spine required a bit of extra support. Luckily, each individual page was thick and in good condition, and the sharp, meticulous engravings made it easy to confirm focus. The majority of the book involved one-page plates, some two-pages spreads, and a handful of foldouts.

One of the foldouts was very large: 20″ x 46″ in total. In order to have decent lighting and any sort of viable resolution, the foldout had to be shot in sections, to be stitched together afterwards. Each section needed to be centered on the platform, at the same distance away from the camera and with no changes to the lighting or focus. The real challenge was to meet these requirements while supporting the book and each section of the foldout. After meeting with our Materials Conservator (the first step in any kind of endeavor like this), she gave me a great plan to make this happen: after the first shot (the part closest to the spine), I set up the book cradle on a book truck, slowly moved it backward to allow the foldout to unfold, and photographed each flat section. As the page opened up and was no longer supported by the pages beneath it, I used Foamcore to keep a level, stable support for the foldout. I also leaned the unfolded parts of the pages against a foam support and kept it in place with a lead rope, to ensure the paper remained intact. Below are the step by step shots (save the final one, which required me to hold some of the foldout closed while taking the photograph with the foot pedal).

Foldout, Section II & III

Foldout, Section I

Foldout, Section IV (including book truck and foam core supports)

And then we have the final, fully stitched foldout. I did keep a reference shot with the color target, just to be safe.

Thomas Alexander Tefft: Architect Extraordinaire

November 12, 2013 by rness | 3 Comments

I wear a couple of hats here at Brown University, one as staff member of Digital Production Services, aiding in the production of digitized resources for library collections and faculty projects, and another as a MA student in the Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage. Often, these professional and academic roles overlap and intersect. Increasing student and faculty engagement with library collections through use of digitized materials within the Brown Digital Repository is a rewarding aspect of the work we do in Digital Production Services. Quite often, I find myself utilizing the digital resources that I have had a hand in creating in my own scholarly research. For instance, the topic under discussion in my graduate section for AMST1250B: Graves and Burial Grounds this week has been the gravestone designs of Rhode Island architect Thomas Alexander Tefft.

Original receiving tomb designed by Tefft.
Image: Swan Point Cemetery

The Thomas Alexander Tefft architectural drawings 1844-1859 are a part of Brown Archival and Manuscript Collections Online, and the nearly four hundred Tefft drawings that constitute the collection are available in the Brown Digital Repository. I knew that Tefft was a native Rhode Islander (born in Richmond in 1826), and a graduate of Brown University (Class of 1851).[1. Mitchell, Encyclopedia Brunoniana (Brown University Library, 1993; pp. 536-537).] I also knew that Tefft designed many local private residences and public buildings, like Providence’s first Union Station and Rhode Island School of Design’s Memorial Hall. What I didn’t know was that Tefft was also a prolific designer of tombs, monuments and gravestones, many of which can be viewed in Swan Point Cemetery.

Tefft’s design for Central Congregational Chuch, now RISD’s Memorial Hall.

Tefft’s signature rundbogenstil (or rounded arch) Romanesque style[2. Curran, The Romanesque Revival: Religion, Politics, and Transnational Exchange (Penn State Press, 2003; p. 139).] can be seen both in Swan Point’s receiving tomb, which I had the opportunity to view last week as a part of our class’s walking tour of the Cemetery, and in the details of RISD’s Memorial Hall (originally Central Congregational Church) on Benefit Street. The towers of the building, seen in Tefft’s drawing, were damaged in the 1938 hurricane and subsequently removed. While Greek and Gothic revival styles were all the rage in America during the 1830s and ’40s, Tefft favored the revival styles of the Renaissance and the Romanesque. Brown’s collection of Tefft architectural drawings include designs for over 50 gravestones and tombs, in which the range of revival styles can be seen in the Classical, Egyptian, and Romanesque motifs he employed.
Remarkably, Tefft’s substantial body of work was created in just 14 years. In 1859, at the age of 33, the architect died of a fever while in Italy on a Grand Tour.[3. Curran, The Romanesque Revival: Religion, Politics, and Transnational Exchange (Penn State Press, 2003; p. 139).] Initially, Tefft was buried at Florence’s English Cemetery, but in February of 1860 his body was shipped back to Providence and re-interred in Swan Point Cemetery. Teftt is buried beside James Bucklin, another important figure in Rhode Island architecture, under a gravestone of his own design.[4. Mitchell, Encyclopedia Brunoniana (Brown University Library, 1993; pp. 536-537).]

The Tefft gravestone design, which now marks his own grave in Swan Point Cemetery.

In 1988, the Department of Art at Brown University collaborated with the National Building Museum on a student-curated exhibit held at Brown’s Bell Gallery. The catalog for the exhibit, Thomas Alexander Tefft: American Architecture in Transition, 1845-1860 is a wonderful resource to consult for more information on Tefft’s short but astonishingly creative career.

RISD’s Memorial Hall. Image: Wikimedia Commons

The Art School Down the Hill

November 7, 2013 by lelgin | Comments Off on The Art School Down the Hill

Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design are within steps of each other, so it’s no surprise that the two have a great deal of overlap in the community. While my full time work is as a photographer at Brown, I have taught photography at RISD (also my alma mater) in their Continuing Education department since 2002. I often use examples from my work at Brown to talk about lighting, lens selection, and other photographic techniques. I was advisor to RISD|CE’s digital photography certificate program for ten years, and during that time I would bring students to Brown to view our studio setup, and talk about the safe handling and digitization of cultural heritage materials.

It is due to my personal connection to RISD and RISD|CE that I was so excited to come across materials over a century old from RISD while photographing at Brown. I’ve been working on digitizing broadsides from the late 1800s, and have found several items from RISD, including bulletins introducing their evening drawing courses for men, art needle work courses for women, listings of their daytime, evening, and youth course schedules, and even an application to the school. As we continue to work our way into the turn of the century, I’m hoping we find even more.

The RISD bulletins are part of the Rider Broadsides collection, which contains a wide range of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, broadsides, ephemera, scrapbooks and newspapers from the 17th through the early 20th centuries. Named for the collector, Sidney S. Rider, Rider Broadsides is the largest private collection of Rhode Island-related materials, and we expect this digitization project to keep us busy for the better part of the academic year.

Mr. Owl and Mrs. Pussycat: a tale of Halloween–or is it?

October 29, 2013 by C B | Comments Off on Mr. Owl and Mrs. Pussycat: a tale of Halloween–or is it?

This little tale, part of our Alcohol, Temperance & Prohibition Collection, is not the same owl and pussycat story I remember from my childhood. Published in the time of prohibition by the Lincoln-Lee Legion, an abstinence pledge program, this “scary” story and others warn readers about the negative effects of drinking alcohol.

College Hill: What Was There

October 4, 2013 by rness | 1 Comment

Brown University Library Digital Collections are a rich resource for historical photographs. The collection Images of Brown contains over 4,000 digital objects alone, with more being added all the time. This collection contains many historical photographs of the campus, but also of the surrounding neighborhood of College Hill (upon which the University sits). The WhatWasThere project allows users to tie historical photographs to Google Street View and makes it possible to envision how your environment looked in the past by fading the photograph in and out. I chose to work with two photographs taken between The John D. Rockefeller Library and the John Hay Library. The photographer in each would have been standing close to the gates to the University looking down College Hill. In the tree lined views, neither library exists. The Hay was completed in 1910, and the “The Rock,” as it is commonly known, wasn’t built until 1964. The first photograph I chose to “fade” represents a view looking down College Street, sometime in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The street is deserted but for a solitary figure caught in motion. What is now the RISD College Building can be seen in the distance. The second photograph appears to be slightly more recent, with the addition of tracks in the street for trolley service. A streetcar filled with passengers approaches the east side. Not all opted for public transit on this sun-filled day; several men in bowlers and boys can be seen walking (even running) up the hill. A dog seems to be accompanying them on the trek (click images for zoomable views.) The interactivity which comes from being able to fade historical photographs from a past era to the present illuminates the past, sparks our imagination, and prompts us to see our daily environment us quite differently.

I encourage you browse the Brown Digital Repository for historical photographs, and to also find interactive ways to experience them. It’s fun navigating familiar streets as they appeared in the past. We would love to hear from you @BrownCurio if you make a successful fade using an image from Brown’s Digital Collections!

Looking up College Hill from South Main Street, in the winter of 1880.

College Hill seen from the gates of Brown University, 1870

No tannins at all, and very little fruit (part I)

September 6, 2013 by lelgin | Comments Off on No tannins at all, and very little fruit (part I)

Perelman Papers, Box 11

Such was the assessment of a leaking bottle of wine from the manuscripts collection (by a library staff member who dared to take a sip). There’s more to this story, and I was lucky enough to be able to both participate in and document the first few chapters.

As preparations began for the 14-month closure of the John Hay Library (Brown’s Special Collections Library), workers readying items for transport to offsite storage noticed that a box in the S.J. Perelman Papers (part of the Archives) was leaking. Inside was a bottle of wine, which had been safely housed in the Hay’s vault for decades; at some point, however, the cork had become unstable and had begun to leak wine. It was clear that the bottle would have to be emptied and sent to our materials conservator. Before (fully) breaking the seal and removing the wine, the bottle was brought to me so that I could document it in its unaltered state. While the most crucial part of this process was to capture and preserve the hand-drawn label, we also wanted to have a record of the object in its original state.

Wine bottle at the ready, I set up our reprographic camera stand to use as a shooting table. Because our strobes have narrow softboxes on them (perfect for documents and books, not so perfect for three-dimensional objects), I used our portable hotlights with umbrellas. Photographing glass is tricky; it’s best to light it from behind, using bounced light to give the object its shape and prevent distracting reflections. However, in this case I needed to show the glass, the liquid inside, as well as the label on the front. I used one light to illuminate the scene, with particular attention paid to the label. I used the other light as a handheld light; I held it by the light stand, and used a variety of angles and distances from the bottle to get the lighting I wanted.

In the interest of thoroughness, I photographed the bottle from the front, back, and sides. The most difficult shot was the back of the bottle, as the label prevented me from lighting through the bottle, and made the surface of the glass highly reflective. I could get myself out of the frame, but both the camera I was using and the one mounted to the top of the repro stand were visible in the glass. I taped white paper over the top camera, which solved the problem easily. The camera directly in front of the bottle needed a bit more work. Using the lens cap, I traced a circle onto a piece of paper. I then cut that circle out, and mounted the paper on the camera (using the lens cap gives you a good approximation of the lens size). The resulting image has the expected specular highlights and reflections, but has minimized the obvious camera/room reflections.

Making the camera cover to reduce reflections.

The final images give a good sense of the bottle, the wine inside, and the label. To afford users a full view of the label, I combined three different shots of the bottle into one.

Front, back, and label views.

Next time, we’ll look at how we approached uncorking the bottle – and what its contents had in store for us.

Civil War General Hawkins’ sword to return to Annmary Brown Memorial

August 30, 2013 by btylr | Comments Off on Civil War General Hawkins’ sword to return to Annmary Brown Memorial

As announced earlier this summer in a Brown University press release and on the Library News blog, a silver Tiffany presentation sword once owned by General Rush Hawkins (Annmary Brown Memorial benefactor, 1831–1920) is returning to Brown. The sword was stolen from Brown sometime during the 1970s, and subsequently switched ownership at least four times.

Shown below are two portraits of a young Rush Hawkins: a 1863 engraving by John Chester Buttre based on a photo by Mathew Brady (click image below for a zoomable image view), and a 1860 portrait by Jacob D. Blondel currently housed in the Annmary Brown Memorial building (photographed by DPS for a Memorial promotional brochure).

Hawkins by Buttre/Brady

Hawkins portrait by Blondel

Cabinets in the front section of the Annmary Brown Memorial, pictured below, showcase swords from the Cyril and Harriet Mazansky British Sword Collection, part of the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection.

Swords from the Cyril and Harriet Mazansky British Sword Collection (Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection). Photo: Lindsay Elgin.

Swords from the Cyril and Harriet Mazansky British Sword Collection (Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection). Photo: Lindsay Elgin.

The Library will officially celebrate the return of Hawkins’ presentation sword on November 7, 2013 at 3:00 p.m., at the Annmary Brown Memorial. The event will feature brief presentations, a performance by the Higher Keys (Brown’s oldest co-ed a cappella group), and refreshments.

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