Access and the documentary photographic archive : a case study

The thesis project in this report describes the appropriate physical and intellectual arrangement of an archive of documentary photography. Using the Fifty Crows International Fund for Documentary Photography (IFDP) Archive as a case study, the project was undertaken with the goal of organizing the collection so that it would function as an accessible archive of both photographic and written materials. This included physically re-organizing the materials within the archive, developing a database, and creating catalogue records for archive materials in the database. Decisions regarding the project were made by myself and based on the goals of Fifty Crows as communicated to me by Executive Director Andy Patrick and Program Director Lillian Sizemore. The project took place over fourteen weeks beginning in May of 2006 at the Fifty Crows gallery in San Francisco, California.