La MaMa’s Pushcart Catalog
Creative Approaches in a Community-Based Performing Arts Archive
Metropolitan New York Library Council Annual Conference, 2015
Suzanne Lipkin, Project Cataloger
Rachel Mattson, Project Manager
Julie Sandy, Project Cataloger
Presentation outline
➔ Introduction to La MaMa and La MaMa’s Archive
➔ The Pushcart Catalog project
➔ Hidden Collection: What’s being revealed
◆ metadata needs of our theatrical event-based
collection
◆ the usefulness of item-ish level cataloging
◆ distinct needs of community/small archives
◆ a history of under-recognized artists, art forms,
and communities
La MaMa E.T.C.
Ellen Stewart, with performers at La MaMa,
1966 (photo: H. Gloaguen, UIN: OBJ.1966.0226)
La MaMa Archives
La MaMa Archives
● holds 10,000+ items, dating back to 1962
★
programs, posters, & correspondence
★
photographs and slides
★
costumes, masks, puppets & other
objects
★
audiovisual materials
★
born-digital
American Indian Theatre Ensemble
during the run of “Body Indian” 1972
UIN: OBJ.1972.0321
Sam Shepard’s
“Melodrama Play” 1967
UIN: OBJ.1967.0020
Pan Asian Rep’s “A Servant of Two
Masters,” 1979
Not yet cataloged
Pushcart Catalog project
➔
➔
➔
➔
funded by CLIR Hidden Collections program
two-year grant, awarded in January 2014
building a searchable online catalog
focused on La MaMa’s early years, 1962-1985
◆ approximately 377 cubic feet of materials
● showbills
● correspondence
● scripts
● photographs
● posters
● objects
● audiovisual materials
Our Tools | Catalog Platform: CollectiveAccess
Our Tools | Metadata Standards: DublinCore
DublinCore element
La MaMa’s catalog field
Title | Description | Date | Source | Language Title | Description | Date | Source | Language | Identifier |
| Identifier | Rights
Rights
Creator, Publisher, Contributor
Related Entities
Subject
•LC Subject Headings
•La MaMa-specific vocabulary
Type
Core categories = paper document, A/V, photograph,
artifact, poster
Format
•Materials
•Extent
Relation
•Related objects (is version of, is referenced by, etc.)
•Related entities (director, photographer, etc.)
•Related productions (is manifestation of, etc.)
•Related Works
•Related Venues (took place at, moved to, etc)
Coverage
Date, Venue
Our Tools | Metadata Standards: PBCore, PREMIS
PBCore element
Instantiation
instatiationMediaType
instantiationDimensions
instantiationDuration
instantiationFileSize
instantiationEssence
instantiationEssenceEncoding
instantiationEssenceAspectRatio
instantiationEssenceTrackFrameRate
La MaMa’s catalog field
Measurements & Extent
Measurements
PREMIS element
La MaMa’s catalog field
contentLocation
Storage Location
Event
eventType
eventDate
Preservation Event
Preservation Event Date
preservationLevel
Digital Preservation Level
fixity
MD5 Checksum (we’re half-way there)
Our Tools | Etc
● LCSH, LC Naming Authorities, and a small in-house
vocabulary.
● Digital Storage: Linux-based Server-->Network Area
Storage-->Amazon Glacier backup
● File Integrity Monitoring: AVPS’s “Fixity” tool
Hidden Collection | What’s getting “revealed”?
Part I:
Metadata issues, etc.
Controlled vocabularies for the performing arts
● LCSH
Useful for describing object types (e.g. “Theater—reviews”)
and genres (e.g. “Native American Theatre”).
Limitations (e.g.):
Describing cross-gender casting or theatrical
performance in drag. (See image opposite.)
Closest LCSH term = “Drag shows.”
● AAT (Getty)
Excludes most types of theater, with the exception of
“performance art.”
● Dictionaries of drama terminology
Limited to technical terms.
Charles Stanley as Medea in H.M
Koutoukas’ “Medea in the
Laundromat.” UIN: OBJ.1965.0143.
How to effectively catalog a performance event?
EVENTS/PRODUCTIONS
OBJECTS
WORKS
ENTITIES
VENUES
Just as there is no definitive controlled vocabulary for performance events, there is also no singular
way to catalog those events.
GloPAD (Global Performing Arts Database)
FRBR
DIGITAL
OBJECT
work
SOURCE
OBJECT
Roundabout
event/production
expression
PERFORMANCE
objects
COMPONENT
manifestation
PERSON
PLACE
PRODUCTION
Franklin Furnace
PIECE
PERFORMANCE ART
PERFORMING
ART GROUP
item
BIBLIOGRAPHIC
REFERENCE
event
objects
Traditional FRBR
Our modified FRBR
work
expression
manifestation
item
work
manifestation/event
venue
entity
item
“Conceptually-oriented, time-based
works such as performance...are
ephemeral by nature and their
documentation through photos, text,
and artists' statements become critical
for understanding"
--Tong, Darlene, “ Artists' Archives:
Preserving the Documentation and
Collections of an Artist Organization".
Art Libraries Journal (2002)
“The Hungry Ones” (1966),
Photo: James Gossage. UIN: OBJ.1966.0020
Hidden Collection | What’s getting “revealed”?
Part II:
The uses of item-ish level cataloging in a
community-based performance arts archive.
What’s the “ish”?
item-ish level inventory =
data captured for each item, though not necessarily the full set for each
vs
collection-ish level inventory =
data captured for each item at a defined level of intellectual arrangement
such as collection, series, media type, etc.
(definitions by Joshua Ranger, senior consultant, Audiovisual Preservation Solutions, in blog post “ What’s Your Product?
Assessing The Suitability Of A More Product, Less Process Methodology For Processing Audiovisual Collections,” August 2012.
Why item-ish level?
● Building on systems/structures developed at Roundabout & BAM
● “Ideally all audiovisual collections should be documented at the item level.”
-Joshua Ranger
● What we’re working to reveal = relationships, not just a standard inventory
“not necessarily the full set of data…”
...because of:
● project constraints
● non-unique items
● archiving vs research
● lack of information
Production Photographs: "Hurrah for the Bridge" (By Conrad Ward) (OBJ.1965.0175)
Challenges of item-ish level cataloging
● One is the loneliest number
● Reliability of metadata
● Limits of existing schema/vocabularies
(image from http://fundraisingpharmacy.com)
Hidden Collection | What’s getting “revealed”?
Part III:
The distinct needs of
community-based archives in the digital age
One definition of community archives:
"Collections of material gathered primarily by members
of a given community and over whose use community
members exercise some level of control.”
-- Flinn, Stevens, & Shepard, “Whose Memory,
Whose Archives?,” Archival Science (2009)."
Community Archiving at La MaMa | Challenges, Opportunities
1)The archive’s custodians have always been artists from the
La MaMa community, not professional archivists.
This means it is critical that we develop ways to:
● advocate for the collection--and describe archival needs and
processes--in simple, non-technical language;
● integrate the catalog into other organizational work;
● reach out to our community for buy-in and description help.
Community Archiving at La MaMa | Challenges, Opportunities
2)We have limited tech infrastructure.
This means:
● our internet is slow and unreliable;
● many archival tools are not workable for us;
● we have to be patient, flexible, and creative in how we
work.
Hidden Collection | What’s getting “revealed”?
Part IV:
A largely unknown history
of early off off-Broadway theater
● The off off-Broadway
beginnings of many well-known
theater artists.
● Ground-breaking work by
under-recognized artists.
● The diversity of early off
off-Broadway.
Duro Lapido’s “Oba Koso”
UIN: OBJ.1975.0060
Ching Yeh’s “Cyclotron”
UIN: OBJ.1971.0101
Bette Midler in “Miss Nefertiti
Regrets.” Photo: James Gossage.
UIN: OBJ.1965.0161
Hidden Collection | What’s getting “revealed”?
Pushcart Collection as a Pre-Stonewall Collection
●
Pre-Stonewall queer theater had its origins in drag
performance
●
Venues such as La MaMa, Caffe Cino, and others in
the off-off-Broadway movement produced works by
and including openly gay and gender non-conforming
artists and content
Promotional Photograph:
After the Ball (Two Figures)
(UIN: OBJ.1964.0094)
Hidden Collection | What’s getting “revealed”?
Pushcart Collection as a Pre-AIDS Crisis Collection
The Pushcart years coincide with
“New York in the pre-AIDS period... the exhilarating
sense of artistic and sexual freedom that followed
the 1969 Stonewall Riots.”
--As described by the New-York Historical Society’s recent exhibit,
AIDS in New York
Harvey Fierstein in his trilogy “Safe Sex” in 1987.
Photograph by Peter Cunningham. (Uncataloged)
Pushcart Collection as a Pre-AIDS Crisis Collection
“In a lot of ways we have been closed,
because 52 artists who've worked at
La Mama have died of AIDS.”
--'Day Without Art' to Mourn Losses From AIDS,
New York Times, November 29, 1989
Photo: The Everett Collection
Photo: Robert Giard
Photo: charlesludlammedea.wordpress.com
Photo: James D. Gossage
find us online:
pushcartcatalog.wordpress.com
lamama.org
@LaMaMaETC
rachel@lamama.org
suzanne.lipkin@gmail.com
julia.sandy@gmail.com
end
How this affects the way we work.
1)
image: eccentricbutlazy.wordpress.com/2009