Community through the Lens of Museum Expedition Photographs
by Stacy J. Schiff on
People gathered, El Banco, Colombia - AMNH Library, Image no. 246873© AMNH/F.M. Chapman
These images have always held great meaning to me and have made my job nothing short of an amazing adventure in its own right. But cataloging Museum images from another place and time held even more significance to me during this last year of pandemic existence and put things into a perspective that did not escape me; one that I appreciated daily after months of being away from it while on furlough both from the Museum’s halls and from my computer.
During 2020 this time away from family, travel, and even my own desk at the Museum Library, the photographs became a sort of lifeline to the history we help make accessible to the public worldwide. After furlough from my work for almost 7 months, a return to the collection, although digitally only, was a sort of coming home, even to places I have never visited. These images allow us to virtually gather in crowds, travel, and encounter people, animals, and places currently out of reach. Returning to my work was not just a return to the images I hold dear, but it brought me to a completely new asset management system, new software, and like many people around the world, to new virtual meeting platforms to allow conferring with colleagues during a time when sitting in the same room was not possible. Upon my return to work this fall it took me a few weeks to familiarize myself with the new software before I jumped in with the guidance of the Library’s digital team, Jen Cwiok, Digital Projects Manager, and Kendra Meyer, Shelby White & Leon Levy Digital Archivist, cataloging my first photographic collection in our new software system which allows for more robust data, volume, sharing, and delivery. It was a pleasure to use Cortex, this new software, that allows us to manage and share data and images among researchers, Library staff, and scientific departments more easily.
I thought I would use this space to highlight a photographic collection from the Library but as I was moved by images of people gathered together, I decided I would instead share a sampling of images, the first I worked on in our new asset management system and discuss how they made me think about the pandemic year. These photographs honor the beauty of community, gathering, and culture from a variety of expeditions and places. And in doing this, the reader will not only travel to several countries through the eyes and lens of our scientific explorers but will also gain a sense of the expedition work carried out by Museum explorers during the last century. We examine the shared spaces of communities and colleagues as we emerge from the time during the pandemic when we could not be together. We found many ways to honor tradition, holidays, family, and each other. We found new and alternative ways to stay connected, to celebrate, to work, and to mark each other’s accomplishments, memory, perseverance, and patience, just like those before us.
We invite you to view these images and many more in the Museum Library's Digital Special Collections.
From the Frank M. Chapman Expeditions:
From the Akeley Expedition to East Africa:
From Robert Lowie Photographs of Arizona:
This is the twenty-third post in a series about how the Library's staff is working remotely and enriching its digital collections to enhance access to researchers and the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. This entry was written by Stacy Schiff, Visual Resources Librarian.
