Objects, materials and surfaces : the photographs of Lynne Cohen

For more than three decades, Lynne Cohen has photographed unpeopled, semi-public institutional and corporate interiors. These haunting, foreboding pictures are frequently discussed for their subject matter: the rooms and what they contain are seen as anthropomorphic, with chairs conversing and plants crouching sedately in their plastic pots. The one-way glass of the windows in laboratories is exposed for its surveillance purposes, while the dummies and targets in factories and police ranges are named as surrogates for the people that are not to be found in these photographs. The works are measured against art movements of the past: Dada, Surrealism, Modernism, Pop and Minimal art. The shifts in the types of places that Cohen photographs have been noted, from living rooms up to military installations. What has been infrequently discussed is how the photographs have changed stylistically. In this thesis, Cohen's images are discussed in terms of their scale, the way that the objects and surfaces change within the prints, her unique framing, and her use of colour film within the past decade

An Archaeology of Architecture: Photowriting the Built Environment

Book Review of An Archaeology of Architecture: Photowriting the Built Environment by Dennis Tedlock. Reviewed by Marsha Taichman

DIY: Zine-Making in LAMS, for LAMS

Zines are easy and affordable to make and distribute. While there has been scholarship on acquiring and preserving zines in Libraries, Archives, and Museums (LAMS), less has been studied about LAMS workers making zines in these contexts. With a return to campus after the COVID-19 pandemic, zines proved to be a fun way to engage and inform patrons about the library, promote services and resources, and build community. The authors are asking research questions, including: Why make zines? How are other information professionals in LAMS making zines to promote services and resources, and support research, teaching, and learning in these contexts? What are the benefits and challenges of zine-making in these contexts? The poster features two case studies of zine-making in art libraries, as well as suggestions for zine-making topics in LAMS. This poster also promotes a larger survey on zine-making in LAMS conducted by Emma Metcalfe Hurst. Survey respondents will be invited to share digital copies of their zines which will be made available on a public website to help LIS workers get started with zine-making, inspire ideas, and connect LIS zinesters. Viewers are invited to take the survey at ARLIS using a QR code on the poster

Cornell University Library’s Digital Collections Portal: Ideas about Assessment and Outreach

An examination of the Digital Collections Portal in its first year of existence, and ideas about collection promotion in general

The Archival Appraisal of Slide Collections at Cornell University

This article discusses several case studies of the archival appraisal and acquisition of slides in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University. It attempts to elucidate the criteria for assessment and describes the outcome in each of these examples. The case studies represent a range of materials in terms of provenance and subject content, including an institutional collection of art and architecture slides, a set of glass slides documenting the northern sky which was used by the Department of Astronomy, and a faculty collection of slides relating to interior design from the College of Human Ecology. Acknowledgements: The authors wish to thank Bonna Boettcher (Director of the Music and Fine Arts Libraries, Cornell), Dianne Dietrich (Physics and Astronomy Librarian, Cornell), and Eileen Keating (College of Human Ecology Records Manager/University Records Manager, Cornell) for their input and feedback