The Good, the Bad, and the....Titles according to CCO

 Original Title: Stowe House, Hartford, Connecticut, United States

New Title: Photograph of the interior of a furnished bedroom, Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Forest Street, Hartford, Connecticut, United States

For this assignment the choices of bad examples for how to title a photograph were so numerous that it was overwhelming.  Do I pick the lesser of two evils, or find one that is just evil enough.  I decided to go with something I was familiar with, Harriet Beecher Stowe.  I surfed on over to Harvard's VIA (Visual Information Access) records to see how poorly (or not) photos of Harriet were described according to the procedures in the Cataloging Cultural Objects, 2006 edition (CCO).  I eventually stumbled across this image of a familiar bedroom. Click, and I have my bad example of a title.

First off, the title does not indicate what the medium is.  Once you see the image you know it is a photograph, but the description in a catalog would not be so clear.  One of the first recommendations from CCO is the precise title (pg. 58) to ID if it is a photograph, sculpture, etc,  There is also no proper identification for who Stowe is.  Could be her husbands family, could be a house in Stowe, Vermont; who knows?  Not the researcher.  This example is discussed on page 64, which also includes notes for specifying location.  While Hartford, CT, USA is accurate, CCO also suggests the street address if possible.  So adding Forest Street would help round out the title as being more descriptive.  If one were so inclined they could also add the direction the photo is facing, so the researcher knows which wall the image is facing in the home.  This detail may seem trivial, but if you know that Samuel Clemens' (aka Mark Twain) house is right out that window, it may add value for the researcher.  Also, CCO (pg. 66-67) recommends indicating whether or not an item is a smaller piece to a whole.  There are other images of the Stowe House on VIA so it may behoove them to catalog a Work Title "Stowe House," then indicate that this image of the bedroom has a related work that it is a part of.  While this assignment is to deal with the given catalog title, I do want to mention the even worse title given by a surrogate record.  It simply titled the image "int., view of bedroom," which is accurate but only on the lowest level.

Title: Symbolizing the close tie-line of communications between aircraft carrier and plane supplied by radar, this photograph reveals a General Mo[t]ors AVENGER speeding past an ESSEX-class flattop, with the latter's radar antennae outlined against the sky

Locating a photograph that had a proper descriptive title was actually the most exhausting part of this assignment.  I attempted to stay in Harvard VIA and see what came along, but nothing in almost an hour there. Then over to the Boston Public Library site, then the Victoria and Albert Museum, then to ArtSTOR where I found this image in the UNITED STATES geographic section.

The title for this World War II era image, may be lengthy, but it was the best example I could find that met CCO guidelines.  The descriptive title portion on pages 62-63, fits this image perfectly.  The detail given is also beneficial because "[d]escriptive titles should be flagged so they may be used in online results displays, wall labels, and so forth."(62)  The more precise aspects, such as ship name or maybe even the pilot/seamen names, can be allocated to the Subject element if/when they are discovered.  This photograph also adheres to the preferred title portion on page 58, as it is clearly a match and the medium, while buried somewhat, is clearly stated in the title.  Any researcher that came across this photograph could be close to 100% sure that the title and photo are a match and this, to me, is the key factor in photographic titles: the reading of the title should draw a fairly accurate mental image.  The title, as indicated from the full ArtSTOR entry, is also the creator and inscribed title (61), which may account for the length and no constructed title.  The issue of location is not covered in the title here, but as I thought about it there may be no way of knowing where this photograph was taken other than at sea. A level of specificity as the Stowe image above may be unattainable.


Sources

Steichen, Edward. "Symbolizing the Close Tie-line of Communications between Aircraft Carrier and Plane Supplied by Radar, This Photograph Reveals a General Moors AVENGER Speeding past an ESSEX-class Flattop, with the Latter's Radar Antennae Outlined against the Sky." Artstor Library. August 14, 1945. Accessed November 7, 2015. http://library.artstor.org/library/iv2.html?parent=true#.

"Stowe House, Hartford, Connecticut, United States." Harvard VIA. Accessed November 7,      2015. http://via.lib.harvard.edu/via/deliver/fullRecordDisplay?    _collection=via&inoID=803223&recordNumber=23&method=view&recordViewFormat=list.

The Visual Resources Association Foundation. Cataloging Cultural Objects a Guide to Describing Cultural Works and Their Images. 2006 ed. Chicago: American Library Association, 2006. 1-76. Accessed November 7, 2015.