DOCUMENT RESUME ED 048 879 LI 002 675 AUTHOR Simons, Wendell W.; Tansey, Luraine C. TITLE A Slide Classification System for the Organization and AutoL.atic Indexing of Interdisciplinary Collections of Slides and Pictures. INSTITUTION California Univ., Santa Cruz. SPONS AGENCY Council on Library Resources, Inc., Washington, D.C. PUB DATE Aug 70 NOTE 244p. EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF-$0.65 HC-$9.87 DESCRIPTORS Automatic Indexing, Automation, *Cataloging, *Classification, Indexes (Locaters), Indexing, *Information Retrieval, Instructional Media, Library Collections, *Library Technical Processes, Reference Materials, *Slides ABSTRACT Almost all disciplines make extensive us,. of the resources provided by slide libraries and picture collections. Growing demands for pictorial material have stimulated a concern for making slide and picture collections more useful and more usable by better physical arrangement and more thorough indexing. The system provides a classification scheme for the organization of general collections of slides and pictures with a broad subject coverage as opposed to the more typical slide classification system which deals with a single subject field.A suggested method of automatic indexing is included. This document will be useful to builders of general collections, and is published as a tool for libraries and other collectors of slides and pictures who have had no ready-made system of cJassification available. (Author/SG) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OH OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECES SARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDU CATION POSITION OR POLICY A SLIDE CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM co co 4- for the Organization and o Automatic Indexing of Interdisciplinary Collections of Slides and Pictures August 197o WENDELL W. SIMONS LURAINE C. TANSEY Assistant University Librarian Slide Librarian University of California, Santa Cruz Work Conducted Under Grants from THE COUNCIL ON LIBRARY RESOURSES 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii The Need for a New Classification 1 A Suggested Method of Automatic Indexing 12 Classification Schedules (Summary) 21 History Schedules 23 Art Schedules 61 Science Schedules 115 Appendix I: Expanded Cutter Table for "S" 147 Appendix II: Authority List for Artists' Names 149 index 241 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The development of this classification scheme was carried out during 1968 and 1969 under two grants from the Council on Library Resources. This publication marks the completion of the second phase of the project. We express to the Council our thanks for their confidence in our proposal. We would like to acknowledge the faithful and thoughtful work of the project staff -- Josephine Bow, Sara Campbell, Beverly Holbrook, Sally Tingley, Marie Wallace, and Susan Wooster -- all of whom contri- buted valuable ideas and many hours of patient work. Thanks are also due to volunteers Don and Mary Weed. We would also like to acknowledge substantive contributions to the body of the work by colleagues in many states and several foreign count- ries -- artists, curators, historians, librarians, media specialists, scientists -- G. Thomas Basler, H. G. Dowling, Dorothy Fulton and Hobart van Deusen, American Museum of Natural History, New York; Charles E. Engel, British Medical Association; Carroll H. Weiss, Camera M. D. Studios, New York; Ernest H. Boldrick, General Dynamics, San Diego; Cynthia Clark and Wolfgang Freitag, Harvard University, Fogg Museum; Priscilla Farah and Margaret Nolan, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Lucille Emil, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Mountain View, Calif.; Guido Schoenberger and Craig Hugh Smyth, New York University Institute of iiZ 3 Fine Arts; Kazuko Higuchi, Princeton University; Lynn A. Griner, San Diego Zoological Gardens; John R. Chipman, Albert Miller and Bill Raub, San Jose State College; Mina Steinmuller, U. S. Naval Electronics Labor- atory, San Diego; Elaine Davis and Joan Joy, University of California, Berkeley; Catherine Borka, Esther McCoy and Jean Moore, University of California, Los Angeles; Barbara Maxwell, University of California, Riverside; Alfred Strohlein, University of California, San Diego; Nicholas Burgoyne, Elizabeth Spedding Calciano, Thomas Kinman, John Knapp, Todd Newberry, Bruce Rosenblum, Michael Starzak, Aaron Waters and Rulon Watson, University of California, Santa Cruz; Mary Meihack and Dimitri Tselos, University of Minnesota; Anthony Croghan, Univer- sity of Sussex; L. D. Brown and Brendan Kelly, University of Toronto; E. P. van den Heuvel, Utrecht Observatory; and Jeanne Harris, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City. And our special thanks to Donald T. Clark, University Librarian, University of California, Santa Cruz, for his encouragement and for his willingness to have the library's time and resources expended on the project. Wendell W. Simons Luraine Collins Tansey (Mrs. Richard G. Tansey) iv THE NEED FOR A NEW CLASSIFICATION Since the advent of television, pictorial materials seem to have taken on even greater importance to teaching in fields outside the normal visual world of the arts. History, anthropology, psychology, the sciences -- almost all disciplines make extensive use of the resources provided by slide libraries and picture collections. Growing demands for pictorial material have stimulated a concern for making slide and picture collections more useful and more usable by better physical arrangement and more thorough indexing. It is to this end that the development of this system is directed. This is a classification scheme for the organization of general col- lections of slides and pictures. The term general is used to denote broad subject coverage and to make a clear differentiation between the scope of this work and the more typical slide classification system which deals with a single subject field, such as art.A preliminary edition of this work, which was distributed in January 1969 to a limited audience, was titled A Universal Slide Classification System. Universality of subject coverage is the ultimate goal, but use of that term at this stage of development might suggest too great a claim for what has been accomplished. The classification system was developed at the University of California, Santa Cruz in response to a local need but with the hope that the product would meet the needs of many libraries. Eighteen months of intensive work on the project was supported by grants from the Council on Library Resources. The basic requirements for a system that were set down before 1 developmental work began were these: 1. The collection, and hence the classification, should be general, encompassing the subject matter of all academic disciplines. 2. The arrangement of the collection should reflect a broad historical, cultural approach to teaching. 3. The filing arrangement of the collection should encourage and facilitate browsing, that is, visual inspection and comparison in the files. 4. In addition to being filed for easy browsing, the collection should be fully cataloged or indexed, preferably by automated means. To the best of cur knowledge or ability to discover no existing slide or picture classification system fulfilled all these requirements, particularly those of generality and indexability. INTELLECTUAL CONTENT VS. VISUAL CONTENT Why could not an existing general classification scheme for books be used for slides and pictures?There is an essential difference. A picture is more analogous to a sentence or a single word than to a book. It makes a single statement on a single theme; a book can be encyclopedic in its coverage or very narrow. Book classifications provide for the very general, the very specific, and everything between. Classification of slides acid pictures can make use of only the most specific. A picture cannot in itself develop a train of thought or a continuity of ideas. A series of pictures (motion pictures, filmstrips or picture sets) can easily be classified using the basic tools designed for book classification. But a single picture or slide is a static object without any function of sequence or continuity. Books can develop and deliver an explicit message; a picture's message is entirely in the "eye of the beholder", subject to many varying and even contradictory interpretations, particularly as it 2 6 is placed in varying sequences with other pictures. Meaningful classification of pictures, then, demands reliance not on intellectual content of the picture, which is entirely subjective and dependent upon sequential development, but upon the visual content which can more nearly be described with objectivity. For instance, a president of the United States may be photographed while delivering to a college graduating class an address on farm policy.This could be construed as illustrating an aspect of education or of agriculture, and would be so construed by persons with special points of view.But the visual content of the picture is the president himself and the picture becomes a bio- graphical statement about him. It belongs more properly with all other pic- tures of the-man and his presidency than it does with the subject on which he spoke, ox the locale of his rostrum. The possible range of visual content is simply not as broad as the range of verbal content in books-- emotions, thoughts, concepts, imagination, speculations; these cannot become the visual content of a picture.The greater part of a typical book classification