Due to the acidic nature of blueprints, they can be extremely brittle and fade very quickly. Because of this, it is essential that the David Whitney Jr. Collection, consisting of 750 original architectural blueprints, be housed using a comprehensive and established method. Considering this, the blueprints will be stored using classic storage guidelines including laying each blueprint flat in its own folder made of unbuffered alpha cellulose to reduce the alkaline environment and minimize light exposure to prevent deterioration. Regardless of the size of the blueprints, each folder will be the same size in each drawer to prevent the shuffling of materials to the back of the drawer.
The blueprints may only be viewed if taken carefully out of the drawer and placed completely flat on a clean, alkaline neutral surface. Patron handling of materials can quickly deteriorate blueprints, so it is the hope of this organization to digitize the entire collection in order to reduce patron handling for efforts of preservation. These preservation efforts will be crucial to maintaining not only the physical collection, but the appraisal value of the materials in the collection.
The organization of this project will be primarily online. The collection of blueprints will be grouped through the various stages of designing, construction, and historical to current day photography. By splitting up the collection by stage of development, the blueprints from each aspect of the Whitney House will get the recognition it deserves.
The design stage will showcase the collaboration between David Whitney Jr. and Gordon W. Lloyd for the Whitney House, as well as pay homage to the original home of David Whitney Jr., which was not deemed grand enough for the Whitney’s. Aspects of the design collection will also pertain to the David Whitney Building overlooking Grand Circus Park.
The construction phase will contain all information and blueprints pertaining to specialized aspects of the house, including the stone, woodwork, furnishings, windows, and landscaping. This will also include any specific information about the choice in location for the house. This phase will also look at the renovation of the David Whitney Building that was undertaken in 2011 to restore the building to its former glory.
The metadata language used for the description and organization of the David Whitney Jr. collection is the DublinCore Metadata Element Set (DC). The DC is the most simplistic metadata language and allows for ease of indexing and access to the collection (NISO, 2011). The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) lists the 15 standard metadata terms, which will be applied to this project:
Title, Subject, Description, Creator, Publisher, Contributor, Date, Type, Format, Identifier, Source, Language, Relation, Coverage, and Rights.
To ensure that the collection is searchable throughout a variety of databases and search engines, the subject headings used inside each DC term will adhere to the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCHS). The collection will be using subject headings applied to historical architecture, historical Detroit, and information regarding David Whitney Jr. himself. These subject headings will be based on MARC entries for books regarding this information, as well as generally accepted subject headings in other databases. The subject headings within the DC will also follow the Library of Congress Name Authorities guidelines (LCNAF) to ensure that names included will be easy to search. For example:
Title: The Whitney House Initial Blueprint
Subject: 19th Century Architecture, Historic Architecture, Detroit Architecture, Romanesque Revival, Gordon W. Lloyd Architecture
Description: Blueprint depicts the David Whitney Jr. House, built out of Pink Jasper from South Dakota featuring Tiffany stained glass windows. The house was built in the early 18th century by lumber baron David Whitney Jr. Built by Gordon W. Lloyd
Creator:
Group #3 INF 6210
Publisher: Detroit Historical Architecture Association
Contributor: Wayne State University Library; Whitney House Collection
Date:
1800. 1894, 1986, 18th Century, 19th Century, 1800’s
Type: BLUEPRINT, SCAN
Format:
JPEG, PNG, PDF
Identifier: Whitney House, David WhitneyJr. House, Gordon W. Lloyd, Design, Construction, Photography
Source: Whitney House Collection, David Whitney Jr. Collection; Wayne State University Library
Language:
ENG
Relation:
Detroit Historical Architecture Association
Rights: All information used in this presentation is protected under the Creative Copyright Law and intended for educational purposes only. The information here is not binding to any associations mentioned nor approved by them.
For more information about metadata, check out these resources:
Here is a short video explaining what metadata is.
Library of Congress. (2018). Library of congress authorities. Retrieved November 26, 2018 from https://authorities.loc.gov/
Library of Congress. (2018). Marc standards: library of congress network development and marc standards office. Retrieved October 30, 2018 from https://www.loc.gov/marc/
Riley, J. (2011). Understanding
metadata: what is metadata and what is it for? National Information
Standards Organization.
This collection was created with specific users in mind. The patrons that are most likely to access the information will be researchers focusing on Detroit history and/or architecture. They will be patrons who are somewhat familiar with Detroit and want to gain a better understanding of the influence David Whitney Jr. Another type of patron who would use the collection would be someone who wants to learn more about architecture, specifically around the late 1800s. The patrons and their needs have been taken into consideration when creating the records for this collection. Ease of access to the collection as well as the preservation of the materials has been greatly considered.
“It is not only our own needs that should concern us in understanding the role of information in society, but also the agendas of others.”
Buckland, M. K. (2017, p15). Information and society. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
David Whitney Jr. Collection 