Beyond the Frame: Toward a Collection-Level Redescription of the Colbert Held Archive

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article argues for the collection-level redescription of the Middle East Institute's Colbert Held Archive, a collection consisting of more than 18,000 color Kodachrome slides of photographs taken by Held throughout his time in the region as a diplomat and geographic field researcher. After discussing the importance of the collection and its possible uses for researchers in the field, this article details how any description of the archives should contextualize the American presence in the Arabian Peninsula during the photographer's time in the region. Arguing that the archives places a dual emphasis on geography and ethnography (the concerted combination of which might be called geo-ethnography), the author argues that the archives would be best served by a collection-level, rather than an item-level, redescription. The article draws from academic literature on reparative description, the More Product, Less Process (MPLP) approach, and Total Cost of Stewardship to suggest that this path forward is the most feasible and meaningful step that can be taken by a small special library to contextualize Held's work and his photographs.