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Recent Publications 

BOOK REVIEWS 

O'Connor, Diane Vogt. Guide to Photo­
graphic Collections at the Smithsonian In­
stitution. Vol. I, National Museum of 
American History. Washington: Smith­
sonian Institution Press, 1989. 351p. 
alk. paper, $29.95 (ISBN 0-87474-927-1). 
LC 89-600116. 
The 150th anniversary of photography 

has seen the publication of numerous 
books celebrating the medium and its 
technical and artistic progress. It is fitting 
that a guide to a large and important 
group of still photograph collections at the 
National Museum of American History, 
themselves portions of one of the world's 
largest photographic collections housed at 
the Smithsonian Institution, joins this 
body of celebratory books, adding not 
only to our understanding of these collec­
tions, but facilitating access to them for a 
wide variety of researchers. 

'In itself, the task of adequately describ­
ing the photographic collections of the Na­
tional Museum of American History 
(NMAH) would seem a daunting one. The 
photographic collections of this single ma­
jor museum of the Smithsonian Institu­
tion comprise by themselves more than 
one million images in a wide variety of for­
mats and photographic processes. These 
images are spread across some 473 indi­
vidually identified collections, located in 
twenty-four custodial divisions or offices, 
and multiple physical locations in this one 
museum of a still-larger institution. Fur­
ther, photonegatives are not held in the 
physical custody of these divisions within 
NMAH, but are kept by the Smithsonian's 
central Office of Printing and Photo­

graphic Services, which also provides 
photoduplication services. 

Understanding and gaining access to 
such enormous and broadly based collec­
tions could seem a formidable task to any 
researcher, even in a less complex institu­
tional context. Happily, Diane Vogt 
O'Connor and the talented team who as­
sisted her have greatly facilitated these 
tasks in a guide that is a model of organiza­
tional clarity, and proper and useful de­
scription. Success on these counts alone 
would be notable enough. But this book 
also offers helpful cross-indexes that illu­
minate relationships within the collec­
tions, and attractive and clear typography 
and layout that make use a genuine pleas­
ure. A forty-nine page illustration section 
exhibits a well-selected sampling of im­
ages from various collections. 

The author has wisely grouped the de­
scriptions of each collection under the 
NMAH division responsible for the collec­
tion, such as the Division of Engineering 
and Industry. At the start of each divi­
sion's listing are the division's address, 
telephone, hours of service, contact per­
son and title; general statements of its col­
lections' scope and focus; the photo­
graphic processes and formats repre­
sented; access, usage, and publication 
policies; as well as a brief but helpful list­
ing of other nonphotographic materials 
held by that division. 

Each photographic collection within the 
division is then listed in order by a unique 
alphanumeric coding system that parallels 
the alphabetical order of the collections' 
full titles. For each collection, the inclusive 

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286 College & Research Libraries 

dates of the photographs, origin of the col­
lection, physical description, subjects, ar­
rangement, caption data availability, find­
ing aid availability, and restrictions are all 
briefly and clearly described. The book's 
introduction further outlines the content 
of these fields, and gives general informa­
tion on access and photoduplication ser­
vices. 

Given the broad scope and sheer size of 
these collections, the data in these fields is 
necessarily concise. Yet neither clarity nor 
informativeness suffers, for the author de­
scribes each collection with a consistent 
style, and uses a carefully controlled vo­
cabulary effectively. This provides a com­
fortable consistency of descriptive form 
that makes usage of the guide easy, and 
immediately highlights features of each 
collection, rather than obscuring them. 

A particularly successful use of con­
trolled vocabulary is in the description of 
photographic processes. Various pro­
cesses both commonplace and contempo­
rary, and exotic and historic, are described 
with precision, using terminology that has 
increasingly become standard, in part 
through the development of the MARC­
VM format, which was used as the basis 
for the surveys conducted within NMAH 
for the development of the guide. 

The book concludes with three indexes: 
a creators index, which lists the photogra­
phers or entities that produced or assem­
bled the images in each collection; a forms 
and processes index, which locates exam­
ples of physically distinct types of photo­
graphs (such as albumen photoprints, or 
collodion wet plate photonegatives); and 
a subject index, created using Library of 
Congress topical terms for graphical mate­
rials. The subject index is useful, since im­
ages related to certain subjects may reside 
in various collections located in separate 
NMAH divisions. The forms and proc­
esses index will be especially appreciated 
by anyone having an interest in the devel­
opment of photographic technique. The 
more exotic variant processes (such as the 
bromoil process variant of the ubiquitous 
silver gelatin photoprint) are clearly 
noted. Widely used processes are not 
used as index terms except for general 
headings, or to establish headings for the 

May 1990 

variant processes. Indexing is keyed in all 
three indexes to collection number, not 
page. This only slightly impairs the use­
fulness of the indexes. 

This book will lead a researcher into an 
acquaintance with a splendid array of 
photographic treasures. From the images 
created by noted photographers such as 
Matthew Brady, Eugene Atget, Andre 
Kertesz, and Richard A vedon in the Divi­
sion of Photographic History; to the 
11,300 images in the Warshaw Collection 
of Business Americana in NMAH' s Ar­
chives Center; to the Pullman Company 
Negative Collection in the Division of 
Transportation, the researcher becomes 
acquainted with a vast and heretofore vir­
tually unknown resource of great artistic, 
technical, and informational value. This 
first volume of a planned five-part set ad­
mirably succeeds as a guide to this photo­
graphic treasure trove. Researchers can 
look forward to the other four volumes to 
do the same for t~e photographic collec­
tions housed in the Smithsonian Institu­
tion's other museums and facilities.­
Mark f. Cedeck, John W. Barriger III National 
Railroad Library, St. Louis Mercantile Library 
Association. 

Wiegand, Wayne A. "An Active Instru­
ment for Propaganda'': The American Pub­
lic Library during World War I. (Beta Phi 
Mu Monograph, No. 1) New York: 
Greenwood, 1989. 193p. $39.95 (ISBN 
0-313-26702-2). LC 88-38489. 
Wayne Wiegand's ''An Active Instru­

ment of Propaganda'': The American Public 
Library During World War I marks the be­
ginning of the Beta Phi Mu's (the Interna­
tional Library Science Honor Society) new 
series of monographs. In his wisdom com­
bined with thorough research, Wiegand 
demonstrates in this study the involve­
ment of American public library commu­
nity during World War I. His detailed in­
troduction covers an overview of the 
history of the public library prior to World 
War I. Also covered in the introduction, 
without going in broader detail, are topics 
such as the founding of the American Li­
brary Association (ALA) in 1876, the pub­
lic libraries' adoption of the Dewey Deci­
mal Classification, the publication of the