Histories of Heritage Imaging at the John Rylands Library (Part 3)
Cataloguing and Metadata
By Jeanette Valdiviexo Basauri & Louie Riseborough
This is the third and last post on The John Rylands Library Imaging Archive and Digitisation Project, as part of MA Library and Archive Studies´ placement. Our group has been working on the digitation of the library´s glass plate negatives. We are Jeannette and Louie, and we were selected to work in the cataloguing and metadata placement.
After the glass plate negatives were cleaned and rehoused by Iris and Sabeth in Collection Care (blog link); and photographed by Alex and Millie in Imaging (blog link); the glass plate negatives were ready for cataloguing.
Preserving the John Rylands heritage goes beyond its renowned and vast collection. The glass plate negatives where used, from the library’s founding until the 1970s, captured precious archival materials for research and public viewing. However, with the rise of modern methods, these unlabelled and undocumented plates have languished in storage for 50 years. Digitising them, while complex, is a fascinating way to unlock a hidden trove of the Rylands’ history — photos often depicting items still part of the collection today.
For the initial documentation, we had the task of making records for the old library index cards that were used before the digitisation of library catalogues. They were used to retrieve and reuse the glass plate negatives. We were exposed to several types of index cards written over the course of more than 50 years. A Latin manuscript might have just an index number, and the corresponding card might just say “Latin Ms.”. Many hands left their mark on these cards — some neat and detailed, others hurried and vague.
Once the glass plates and envelopes had been digitised by the imaging team, we commenced the process of metadata creation. Prior to uploading the digital assets to the Luna platform, it was necessary to ensure that the photographs were accompanied by additional standardized information. This step was essential to enable all users to search for items across the digital collection with ease. We could often spend several minutes searching for the correct information to attach to the digital files before they could be made available to users.
As we explored through the photographs, we found images that have been photographed more than once, that made us wonder how the images were taken over time, and how they were used and re-used. For example, we found this beautiful image depicting bird killing serpent from the Latin MS 8 Beatus super Apocalypsim that was taken in different periods of time:
The Rylands’ Imaging Archive collection boasts a richness that extends far beyond the realm of manuscripts and books. While a significative portion comprises negatives capturing traditional library material, others hold a fascinating mix: wood printing blocks, alongside random negatives of book pages, photographs of landmarks, and portraits.
We want to thank to our placement hosts for the time and knowledge shared with us, it has been a wonderful experience to work in the back end of a special collections digitisation project and getting to know the history of the Rylands Historic Imaging Archive.
“The Imaging Archive MA placements have been a hugely rewarding experience for us all. It has been great to support the new Library and Archive Studies course, and to be able to offer students placements across different teams in the library working together on a common outcome.
We’d like to thank all the students for their incredibly hard work, and all the staff involved, particularly Gwen Riley Jones for her meticulous project planning in the first instance, and Tony Richards for managing the placements across all the teams.
The work the placement students have carried out has unlocked great potential for further research opportunities into the history of the library and historic photography of cultural heritage by opening up this truly unique resource for the first time.”
James Robinson, Imaging Manager
