Project: Better Subject Access for Special Collections

Overview: This project investigates options for providing better subject, theme, genre, and keyword access in the library catalog for special collections patrons.

The examples below are used as the basis for discussions on improving subject analysis in the special collections cataloging workflow at the University of Miami Libraries.


Summaries & Abstracts

Using description on the material (dust jacket):
Fire Island Pines : polaroids, 1975-1983 / Tom Bianchi

Bianchi "was invited to spend a weekend at Fire Island Pines, where he encountered a community of gay men. Using an SX-70 Polaroid camera, Bianchi documented his friends' lives in the Pines, amassing an image archive of people, parties, and private moments. These images, published here for the first time, and accompanied by Bianchi's moving memoir of the era, record the birth and development of a new culture. Soaked in sun, sex, comaraderie and reverie, Fire Island Pines conjures a magical bygone era." -- Dust jacket

Using publisher description:
Books of nudes / Alessandro Bertolotti

"Alessandro Bertolotti's unrivalled collection of books on nudes, amassed over thirty years, allows us to explore the history of photographic creations, from the first academic snapshots all the way up to the most audacious avant-gardists. Organized chronothematically, and accompanied by sociocultural analyses, this work presents over 160 books, from the celebrated to the obscure, and includes all the photographers who made nudes famous: Germaine Krull, Man Ray, Hans Bellmer, Bill Brandt, Araki, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pierre Molinier, Jean Saudek, and Jean-Loup Sieff." -- Publisher description.

Broad Categorizations

Browse the Caribbean Collection by country


Browse the Zine Collection by genre


Granular Indexing

Example from Sirene 1

About: Seafaring life
Of: Mermaids
Genre: Caribbean Poetry
Format: Poems, Artists' books, Manuscripts
Materials: Tyvek (TM)
Techniques: Cut-paper work, Handwriting

Guided Search

Example from Otis College of Art and Design

Example from Goucher College

Example from Book Artists Unbound


Visualizations

Subjects in the Jackie Gleason Collection


Names in the Artists' Books Collection



Jump to:

Summaries & Abstracts

Broad Categorization

Granular Indexing

Guided Search

Visualizations