Expanding access to Nickolas Muray's celebrity portraits: cross cataloguing of Richard and Ronay Menschel Library manuscript and photography collections at George Eastman House

Abstract

This applied thesis project was undertaken to expand access to the photographer Nickolas Muray’s (1892–1965) celebrity portraits by creating intellectual links between the Richard and Ronay Menschel Library Manuscript Collection and the Department of Photography (DOP) Collection held at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York. The project consisted of two phases: (1) to create item-level descriptions for the published examples of Muray’s celebrity portraits in the Library’s Nickolas Muray Manuscript (Mss) Collection Boxes 125-126 Illustrations, and (2) to revise the DOP catalogue records for the corresponding photographic prints and negatives, and their variants from the same photographic sessions within the museum’s collections management system, The Museum System (TMS). This paper outlines the methodologies behind the project and describes decisions made to expand access to Muray’s celebrity materials in both the manuscript and photographic collections.