Image Digitizing/Cataloging Practicum at AAEL

This semester, I've been working on developing digitizing and processing best practices for a pretty sizable collection of negatives depicting romanesque church ornament and architectural sculpture. What's been most interesting about this project is considering how access possibilities can impact cataloging decisions, and having the opportunity to research the CCO (Cataloging Cultural Objects) guidelines. While the guidelines set up by the VRA for CCO are pretty general, they are taking into account how objects relate to their surrogate images, as well as item-component relationships: concerns that are shared by image catalogers, museum informatics professionals, and potentially, archivists working with realia. (I just love the term realia!)