Comic Books of the 1950s

"Comic Books in the '50s" was created and compiled by the Electronic Collections Manager at the University of Buffalo libraries. This online archive hosts a wide variety of comic book covers from the 1950s and a section called the "Crusade Against Comic Books", a movement from the '50s that believed comic books were unsuitable for children.

The comic book covers are organized alphabetically by title. They may also be searched for by title, year, genre, and/or theme. Each cover also has the title of the comic, volume and number (if applicable), month, year, and publisher.






















Batman No.(128 ) December ,1959 National Periodical Publications

Wonder Woman No.(67 ) July ,1954 National Periodical Publications

The "Crusade Against Comic Books" gives a brief history of the anti-comic books sentiments that were on the rise in the 1950's. It also describes the creation of the Comics Code Authority (CCA), which is the "comic book industry's mechanism for self-regulating the portrayal of sex, violence, and antisocial activity in American comic books." (Source)









This archive is fun for fans of comic books. It does not, however, have a cover for all the major comics from this era. Fans of superheros such as the Flash or the Green Lantern, will be disappointed. This archive does have covers from comics such as "Might Mouse", "Archie", "Jungle Tales" and more. It is also disappointing that there is no mention anywhere as to the source of these comic book covers. Presumably, they were a donation to the UB Libraries, but that information is not available from the website. More information may be requested from Mark Lavin, the Electronic Collection Manager.

http://www.fan-museum.org/

http://www.fan-museum.org/
The Fan Museum
12 Crooms Hill,
Greenwich, London SE10 8ER

The Fan Museum of Greenwich, London web site appears to be actively taken care of and up to date. It has a current temporary exhibit ADAM AND EVE and pinch me,
An exhibition of Biblical Fans from the 17th century to the present day
15 January 2009 - 31 May 2009 and POETRY IN MOTION begins June 2009 - 04 October 2009-. Its collection’s history seems well researched and documented on the web site. “The Fan Museum is the first and only museum in the world devoted in its entirety to all aspects of the ancient art and craft of the fan. It has been described as "an architectural and artistic gem", and as "an oasis of tranquility". The Fan Museum is home to a collection of more than 3,500 predominantly antique fans from around the world dating from the 11th century to the present day. Its collection and fans on loan from other collections are displayed in changing themed exhibitions in which fans are presented in their historical, sociological and economic contexts. For conservation reasons it is not possible to display the whole collection together at any time; therefore the museum features two distinct displays. The first is permanent and serves as an introduction to fans: their history, how they are made, the materials used, and the various types and sources of fans. The second, highlighting a particular theme, changes three times a year to enable visitors to appreciate the many aspects and intricacies of fans.”
The site also has a statement of copyright: “All images are the property of The Fan Museum and as such are copyright protected © 2007 and not to be reproduced without express permission.”
In 1991, when the Fan Museum opened it had the distinction of awards from both the National Art Collections Fund and the English Tourist Board for "outstanding contributions to the Arts and to tourism".
Sadly, you would have to actually go to the museum, as there are only a few examples of each of the previous and current exhibits, which are so small that there is no chance of viewing the details. Absolutely nothing is clickable to enlarge or zoom in on. No metadata is provided for any of the fans displayed on each web page. Unfortunately, ones high expectations are quickly dashed by the lack of presentation. The only way you might be able to get up close and personal with these fans is if you are actually there in person.
The gift shop at The Fan Museum contains a fascinating range of high quality items all of which have a fan theme which would make great gifts. Individuals may even commission their own design. The museum even provides workshops for a wide variety of purposes; e.g. publicity, banqueting, weddings, anniversaries, presentations, etc.
The Fan Museum has a fully qualified conservation service for the preservation and protection of cherished fans.
They have a shopping page with a sampling of their gifts and a pdf. order form to download, but even here the objects are so small with no opportunity to zoom in for a closer look that you really wouldn’t want to risk ordering something that you couldn’t see.

Remarkable Ohio

Remarkable Ohio is a site sponsored by the Ohio Historical Society and the Ohio Channel (covering state government and local PBS programming) that provides a database of 1279 historical markers located throughout the state.  I find it interesting because it is not a collection of exclusively archival material, but also of photos of the markers themselves.  The markers are the focus of the site, so descriptive data is largely concerned with the signs' locations.  The site contains contemporary photos of each of the markers, mostly taken by registered participants from local historical groups or other citizens.  The site's collection is being created largely by these citizen participants with some historical materials from the OHS to augment the information available about each of the markers.  In fact, some markers have no photos, yet.

Unfortunately, any historic photos that are included offer very little information about the item itself.  Historical photos seem to be uploaded only by the OHS at this point.  A short narrative description of the subject of the photo, often including dates, is offered along with some sort of catalog number in parentheses.  As a result, I think the site, and specifically OHS, misses an opportunity to let users know where they can go see more historical materials, not to mention providing technical data for us library types.  Each marker's page has an option to scroll through small images (if multiple images exist) and include a link to "full resolution" images.  These are just JPEGs and are only slightly larger than the first image, in most cases.  No manipulation tools are available to inspect images further.

As mentioned, data about the markers is much more informative.  Both sides of the markers are transcribed on each marker's page.  Street addresses are included, along with latitude/longitude–participants are encouraged to use GPS devices to record the markers' locations.  Links are provided for imbedded Google maps to the markers' location, but every map link I attempted was broken.  Other information includes year erected, local sponsors, and category and subject keywords for the markers.  Those keywords can be used to search for specific markers, or users can browse the markers by county, title, or category.  Users can also register for a free account and save their favorite markers in a special collection.  If users wish to use the images, the site offers a means to request permission from image owners online.

The Remarkable Ohio program is presenting information about a different type of information carrier.  I feel it is sort of like a collection of photos of libraries.  Typically, inside the library is where most would expect to find the information, but on this site, the information is on the wrapper in some sense.  I also like that this digital collection is being created as it goes along.  A bit of Web 2.0 sneaking in? 

Jacques Burkhardt and the Thayer Expedition to Brazil (1865-1866)

http://ted.lib.harvard.edu/ted/deliver/home?_collection=mcz

Selection Decisions

The information page for this digital library gives an overview of the collection and related initiatives. I can't find any evidence that there was anything left undigitized from the physical collection, but there is information about non-scientific drawings and portraits that were segregated from this digital collection, and are instead viewable with Harvard's general image search. On the information page there is also the ability to do an advanced search of the collection. Browsing is not as intuitive, with no thumbnails available, and all scans browsable only through the "browse indexes" section of the MCZ Ernst Mayr Library Artwork Collection, which appears to have only the Burkhardt drawings in it. As a new user to the collection, it made me question if I was browsing the right collection, and if I was seeing the results of only the Burkhardt collection. For sustainability, I wonder what would have to be redesigned if non-Burkhardt items were added to the MCZ Digital artwork collection.

Metadata

There's a large amount of metadata for each object, including biological classification information for the animals represented in Burkhardt's drawings, expedition names, and even the date and locations for most drawings. There is enough information to find the objects in the physical collection, with each item having its own unique call number.

Object Characteristics

For each image, there are 4 levels of zoom, allowing great detail with an option to save the zoomed image. There's also an option to "View full image". Downloading an XL version of this scan gave me a ≈ half-megabyte .jpeg file, in 72ppi but with very large dimensions (1469 x 2400 pixels at 20 x 30 inches). Since the original image was 9 x 14 cm, I wonder if the scan could also be thought of as ≈ 400ppi at the original size? In both ways of saving, there is an annoyance in that saved images are named "Convertor" by default, rather than referring to their name in the collection.

Intended Audience

With respect to the collection's emphasis on searching rather than browsing, lack of thumbnails, and inclusion of biological classification information, I would guess that the intended audience for this collection is researchers who work in the fields of biology and zoology.

University of Wisconsin Galapagos Collection

The University of Wisconsin's Galapagos collection contains documents and pictures from Ecuador. The University is one of 3 locations that have been given permission by the Ecuadorian government to have these materials, making the collection rare and worth preserving. It is unclear whether the online collection contains all of the photographs or just a select group from the collection.
The photographs can easily be searched by keyword, title or some other attribute, and an advanced search feature is easily accessible to users. A few subject searches I ran for things such as "turtle" came back without any results though there were clearly images of turtles in the system, revealing that the search is not as good as it could be.
Each image in the collection can be viewed in three different sizes (small, medium and large) and metadata is provided on the same page. Metadata includes fields such as the title, photographer, date, place, time, description, type, subject, is part of, rights, submitter, and a local identifier. Some fields, such as subject, place and submitter are links to other items with the same field entries.
The images themselves appear to be mostly photographs taken in the field in Ecuador to supplement the papers and scientific studies of the natural ecosystem there. The largest version of the photographs is big enough to see the subject, but not big enough to be the largest version they could have placed on the site. The reasons for their decisions about the images and their sizes is unclear.
The site seems to be geared toward academic researchers who might be interested in the work done in Ecuador. IT could also serve people with a mild curiosity but the interface is too cumbersome to hold their attention for long.

USC LIBRARY DIGITAL ARCHIVE

The digital archive at the University of Southern California provides online access to both internal and external archival resources. This seems to be a large-scale project, containing large volumes of digital resources, and several partner agencies (including other libraries, newspapers, museums and historical societies). The central purpose of the collection is to document regional history. Though there is no specific selection criteria available, the “about” page does communicate a focus on materials that document “the Southern California Region, the Western United States and the Pacific Rim.” Collection materials are traditional archival forms, including photos, film, audio recordings, maps, documents, and artifacts.

Each digital image contains individual metadata, including some basic information (creator, title, source, description etc.) and also some information about the digital object. Photographic items, for example, receive a digital identifier, and information about access restrictions and terms of use. One particularly interesting feature of the metadata is a section about “provenance,” which pertains not to the digital image, but to the physical object. Nonetheless, this seems like an attempt to retain the object’s archival value even if it is just a mention and link to the larger collection.

The digital image is not easily manipulated. The only access feature is the enlargement or magnifier. However, images can be printed, e-mailed or added to a personalized “selection” folder. Additionally, the images can be browsed in multiple ways, which enhances the quality of the collection. For example, patrons can access “featured content,” or browse geographically. The introductory page also has an inviting slideshow of apparently random images.

The “about” page does make a reference to the collection’s potential audience, stating: “broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural documents that provides maximum access to relevant, authoritative, and scholarly resources. It also allows individuals to pursue learning at their own personal levels of interest, ability and desire.” It seems the emphasis is on both an academic and public audience.

The Pequot Museum

The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, located in Mashantucket, Connecticut, is a unique institution in that it is a $193.4 million dollar museum on Native Americans fully run and financed by the Mashantucket Pequot nation and located on that nation's reservation. (The Mashantuckets also operate Foxtails, the world's largest casino, conveniently located at the midpoint between New York and Boston.) The museum maintains an active web presence, with its permanent physical exhibts also being rendered into webpages.

The Mashantucket Pequot Museum's website is not a full digital library, but an extension of the physical museum and archives so that material on the Pequots and other Amerindians can be accessed by the public. (The Mashantuckets main purpose in creating the museum is to raise awareness of Native history and the issues facing many First Nations today. Fundraising is handled by the casino.) That being said, online objects are displayed in two ways. First, the website consists of a number of exhibits (corresponding to physical exhibits) that are obviously well curated on topics such as The Pequot Village. These exhibits consist mostly of text providing a nice summary of pertinent historical and archaeological knowledge as well as insights from curators and/or researchers. Sadly, they do not contain many actual digital objects, and what they do have is limited to images of museum displays (typically panoramas) and maps. Furthermore, these objects lack all metadata!

However, the Mashantucket Pequot Musuem also provides a link to a flickr page on which they display a number of images of objects from their archive. These objects are much higher quality, can be enlarged, are described with an abundance of metadata, and are generally primary source type objects. On the downside, there are only about twenty of these superior digital objects, and they clearly serve primarily as a teaser for the Mashantuckets' impressive archive. (There is also an online finding aid for their archive, as well as instructions for ordering copies and/or arranging a scholarly visit to the archives.)

As a self-contained digital library, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum falls a bit short, but as an advertisement to available resources, it strikes me as quite successful. Also, I found the Mashantuckets incorporation of flickr into their normal website to be rather clever. I do believe that the Mashantuckets have made progress on their goal of raising awareness of Amerindian culture to both the general public (thus the panoramas) and the scholarly community (thus the archives and finding aid.)