It took me a while to, again, consider subjects to research for historical photographs. Unlike Flickr, I had no experience using the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog other than reviewing the Library of Congress website for potential internships. I finally decided upon our school, Kent State University. Earlier this spring, we marked the fortieth anniversary of the Kent State Riots, which occurred in May of 1970, the year in which I was born. Being an infant, of course, I wasn't aware of what had happened, but I later learned of the impact of this tumultuous event.
I first used the search term Kent State Shootings, and that resulted in only three pictures. I couldn't believe that only three items resulted from my first search, so I started to think of different search terms to yield better results. I then tried Kent State Massacre, which only gave me one item that didn't even seem to be related to the event. My next search term was using Kent State 1970, which produced 12 results, the most thus far of the three terms. However, three of those hits were labeled Not Digitized and displayed no picture. I opened the Not Digitized items, and discovered that the Library of Congress would not display these pictures as it does not generally own rights to materials in its collections. There was information listed about purchasing a copy of the item through the Library of Congress. I was somewhat surprised about the Library of Congress not owning the rights as I made an assumption that that would be a part of their process for securing photographs. I also tried Kent State Protest and produced only three items, none of which were different.
I also tried these same four search terms used the Advanced Option which allows you to search isolating the words that you want to match, whether you want to use variants, or the fields in which you want to frame your search term. I still was not able to find any additional photos beyond the total 12 which I found using all of the terms. I don't know if I was not creative enough with my search terms, or it was just that this was the extent of the pictures provided by the online catalog. I saved a small collection of photos, but they are mostly thumbprint pictures with the larger display only available at the Library of Congress. I don't think that the intention of the catalog is to generally display photos such as with Flickr, but maybe just to cite that such a photo exists for research purposes. I don't imagine that anyone would use Flickr for "hard research," but rather for personal enjoyment. This online catalog has a historical slant as was mentioned in the assignment. I read over some of the help information, but still could not figure out a different route to use for searching. One benefit is the option of bookmarking the sites for photos. I think that my subject, surprisingly, was not something that was as expansive as I might have thought for a historical event. I don't believe that this online catalog provided you with modes of organization such as Flickr using its sets, collections, and galleries. I would like to try a few other historical items for searching before giving this a less than favorable review.
http://delicious.com/1nappygurl/Assignment_7
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