METHODOLOGY

Class 

Posters: I cataloged the posters as physical objects because their ephemeral, material forms are integral to their meaning and historical significance. Cataloging them as images would discount their unique nature.

Photographs: I cataloged the photographs as physical objects because they do not represent images of visual works or cultural objects. Rather, their existence as documentary media serves as contextual evidence of the WPA arts programs. 

Audio Recordings: I cataloged the audio recordings as sounds. 

Title 

For all of the formats, I essentially extracted the titles from those given by the respective repositories. However, I wanted to create unique titles for consistency and brevity within my collection so I made minor changes, mostly pertaining to length.

Description 

Posters: The posters were pretty self-explanatory since most of the information pertaining to the “of-ness” and “about-ness” is explicitly defined in the images themselves. I tried to include descriptive illustrations of the colors and design for the sake of accessibility. 

Photographs/Audio: Writing the descriptions for the photographs and audio recordings took a little more research in order to grasp the context and relation to the Federal Music Project. The audio clips in particular took some time listening, though I thoroughly enjoyed the process.

Contributor 

Deciphering contributors was surprisingly difficult because I had to differentiate amongst contributor, creator and publisher. Since there were several entities involved in the creation of Federal Music Project media, this became more of a brain exercise than I originally expected. I utilized LC: Name Authority File. 

Posters: For the posters, I went back and forth on whether the poster artists would be creators or contributors. I decided to include them as contributors since they worked alongside other individuals within the larger umbrella of the Federal Art Project. In order to ensure that their work is properly acknowledged, I included “artist” next to their names.  

Photographs: Most of the photographs were taken during FMP events so I included FMP and WPA as contributors. 

Audio: I included the WPA as contributor since it sponsored the recorded performances.

Creator

I utilized LC: Name Authority File.

Posters: For posters, I identified the Federal Art Project as the creator since the program and many entities within the program created the physical posters. 

Photographs: If the photographs have identified photographers, I included them as creators. If they don’t, I wrote, “unidentified photographer.”

Audio: Since the Federal Music Project created the recorded events, I included it as creator. 

Date

Many of the posters, photographers, and recordings don’t have known dates but rather date ranges. Those that do have specific dates are described with the recorded year. 

Physical Medium

I changed the original Dublin Core field "Format" to "Physical Medium," since most of the materials are cataloged as physical objects. I used Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus because it offers more descriptive and relevant terminology for physical mediums.

Audio: For audio, I identified the digital audio players as physical formats.  

Identifier

Although each item had pre-created identifiers, I made my own to maintain consistency within the collection. Each identifier begins with a unique number, then “fmp” to stand for Federal Music Project. The next three letters signify that the collection is either a poster (pos), photograph (pho) or audio clip (aud). The last two letters identify the original repository of which I extracted the mediums: lc for Library of Congress, na for National Archives, nl for NYPL, and wn for WNYC. Each section is separated by a hyphen.

Language

I only included language in the posters and audio recordings, which include English text and dialogue. 

Publisher

Like Creator and Contributor, Publisher presented me with some philosophical issues. Would the publisher be the Works Projects Administration, the umbrella entity that sponsored all of the material? Or would it be the actual repositories from whichI extracted the media? I decided to go with the repositories because they are the organizations that are technically holding the resources and making them accessible through the digital collections.  I used LC: Name Authority File and LC: Cultural Heritage Organizations.

Rights 

I utilized Rights Statement.

Posters/Photographs: Figuring out the rights for all of the posters and photographs was relatively straight-forward thanks to the metadata defined by each repository.  

Audio: I never was able to discover the exact rights of the audio recordings, however, I think it’s safe to assume that they remain in copyright since most sound recordings before 1972 remain understate statutory and common law copyright law. 

Source

I linked the specific webpage from the original digital collections and included the original titles of each work . 

Subject

Although I enjoyed creating subjects, I found myself wanting to defy the hierarchical relationships that Library of Congress subject headings follow. I further reflect upon this notion on the REFLECTIONS page. I utilized LC: Subject Headings, LC: Name Authority File, and LC: Thesaurus for Graphic Materials.

Posters: The posters subjects were relatively easy to identify because they explicitly advertise what they are of and about. 

Photographs/Audio: The photographs and recordings were slightly more involved because there were more elements to each photograph, such as background environment, individual players, and even type of medium. I really had to remember that I am listing the "of-ness" and "about-ness" of each resource.

Type

In my resource template, I included “genre” in the comments to elaborate on the content for this field. I utilized LC: Genre/Form Terms.

Spatial Coverage

Most of the resources were created or disseminated in New York, and specifically the Greater New York City area.  I utilized Getty: The Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN).

Is Part Of

Most of the resources are part of greater collections, of which I linked in this field. 

Item Sets

The three item sets are Federal Music Project - Posters, Federal Music Project - Photographs, and Federal Music Project - Audio.