Collection Thinking is a volume of essays that thinks across and beyond critical frameworks from library, archival, and museum studies to understand the meaning of "collection" as an entity and as an act. It offers new models for understanding how collections have been imagined and defined, assembled, created, and used as cultural phenomena.
Featuring over 70 illustrations and 21 original chapters that explore cases from a wide range of fields, including library and archival studies, literary studies, art history, media studies, sound studies, folklore studies, game studies, and education, Collection Thinking builds on the important scholarly works produced on the topic of the archive over the past two decades and contributes to ongoing debates on the historical status of memory institutions. The volume illustrates how the concept of "collection" bridges these institutional and structural categories, and generates discussions of cultural activities involving artifactual arrangement, preservation, curation, and circulation in both the private and the public spheres. Edited and introduced collaboratively by three senior scholars with expertise in the fields of literature, art history, archives, and museums, Collection Thinking is designed to stimulate interdisciplinary reflection and conversation.
This book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners interested in how we organize materials for research across disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. With case studies that range from collecting Barbie dolls to medieval embroideries, and with contributions from practitioners on record collecting, the creation of sub-culture archives, and collection as artistic practice, this volume will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered about why and how collections are made.
Author(s): Jason Camlot, Martha Langford, Linda M. Morra
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 364
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Collection Thinking
Using
Moving
Holding
Structure and Contents of This Collection
Notes
Bibliography
Part 1: Ontology
Chapter 1: Ontology
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 2: Incautious Stewardship of Library Collections: Creating Collections Where They Don’t Exist, Losing Collections Where They Do
Definitions: What Is a Library Collection?
Literature Review
Illustrative Case Studies on Collections and Contextual Information
The Case of Harold William Vazeille Temperley
The Case of the French Play Collection (Unbound)
The Case of the A.G. Parker Cinema Collection
The Case of George Cukor’s Books
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 3: Indexing Intimacies: The Affective Collections of André Breton and Samuel M. Steward
Indexical Objects
Ritual Road Signs
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 4: Collecting Children in Coraline and Harry Potter
Adults as Collectors
Children as Collectors
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 5: Edible Enigmas: Food Riddles and Enigmatical Bills of Fare
Private Riddle Collections
Public Riddle Collections
How Were Riddle Collections Shared?
Riddle Collections as Shared Terrain for Librarians and Scholars
New Channels for Riddle Collecting and Riddle Collections Outreach
Conclusion: The Future of Shared Collections
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 6: A Variantology of Research Collections: The Residual Media Depot
What Is Variantology?
The Problem
Variantologies
Shallow Media Temporalities
Bigger Problems
Notes toward a Method
Techniques
Documentation
Disassembly and Reassembly
Soldering and Desoldering
Testing and Benchmarking
Assessment, Writeup, Research Communication
Aside: Expert Discourse
Initial Case Study Notes: The Super Famicom
Initial Conclusions and Working Hypotheses
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 7: Situationist Stuff: Collection as Explanatory Accumulation
Notes
Bibliography
Part 2: Agency
Chapter 8: Agency
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 9: Audible Collections: What Remains of Voices on the Radio
An Audible Collection
Anthology as an Audible Collection
Inaudible Remains
Dissembling Remains
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 10: Collection as Biography: The Pierre and Annie Cantin Collection
Brief History of a Collection
Collectors’ Network
The “biography of things”
Objects, People, Stories
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 11: “The Relics … What Are They?”: Locating Florence Nightingale in Her Childhood Library
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 12: Creating, Collecting, and Curating: Mothers Pass Down Barbie Traditions
Creating Barbie
Collecting Barbie
Curating Barbie
Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 13: Collecting Copies: The Fabiola Project by Francis Alÿs
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 14: Audio Aficionados: The School of Collecting Very Old Sound Recordings
Notes
Bibliography
Part 3: Community
Chapter 15: Community
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 16: Made to Move: Convent Embroidery Collections and Communities of Care
Communal Use, Communal Care—The Society of St. Margaret
Collective Stewardship—Toward an Ethics of Care
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 17: Collect Them All (Again): Digital Collection as Nostalgic Incentive in Fire Emblem Heroes
The Question of Ownership: Gacha Games as Digital Ephemera
The Mechanics of Collection: Nostalgia and the Collector’s Self
Collecting Meaning: Online Communities and Social Sharing
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 18: Off the Grid: Exploring the Human Networks in Underground Art Making and Collection Building
Classification of the Artexte Collection and Special Collections
Projet Mobilivre—Bookmobile Project Collection
The Réjean F. Côté Mail Art Collection
Community and Network in Collecting Practices
Representing the Context of Creation: Toward an Extended Network
Reactivation of Collections
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 19: Finding Fireweed : Magazine Metadata as Archive of Feminist Movement
Magazine as Collection
Collecting Data
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 20: The People and the Text: An Inclusive Collection
First Barrier: The Devaluing of Indigenous Texts
Second Barrier: Library Cataloging Systems
Third Barrier: Libraries That Exclude Multimodal Storytelling
Fourth Barrier: The Failure to Accommodate Indigenous Protocols
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 21: Raging: Revisiting Raging Dyke Network
Notes
Bibliography
Conclusion, or How to Use This Book Now That You Have Read It
Notes
Bibliography
Index
