The NEH-funded Joseph
Urban Stage Designs Stabilization
and Access Project of 2002-2004 focused
on materials relating to
Urban's New York theater
career from 1914-1933, specifically
the documentation of his
productions for the Ziegfeld
Follies and other theater
producers, and his productions
for the Metropolitan Opera.
The archives of these productions
contained many thousands
of documents, photographs,
sketches, technical drawings,
and watercolors, as well
as the actual stage models.
Some 61 of the models remained
fully assembled when acquired
by Columbia, while 281 models
had been collapsed by the
Urban studio into one or
more flattened bundles each.
Selection
for Digitization. The
decision was made to scan
every flat document that
would fit on the equipment
available in the Columbia
University Libraries Reprography
Laboratory. Exceptions were
made in three cases where
items listed in the finding
aid were not scanned. First
is duplicate items, and
second is lengthy printed
matter, for instance libretti.
The covers and title pages
were scanned but not the
texts. Third is all materials
over 11.5 x 17". The main
category of items not scanned
was the technical drawings,
many of which were folded
and extremely fragile, so
that digitization in any
case would not have been
possible without conservation
action to flatten and repair
the items.
Many
of the watercolors were too
large to be digitized in house,
but 4x5 color transparencies
had been made of almost all
of them during a previous
project. These transparencies
were scanned and added to
the image collection, along
other miscellaneous 4x5 transparencies
that had been made previously.
Finally,
the 61 assembled, three-dimensional
stage models were photographed
and these photographs were
digitized. Each model is shown
from a number of angles and
in many cases important details
were also photographed.
Other
Images: Columbia's digital
collection includes a small
number of images from other
series in the Urban Collection
made for researchers, exhibits,
and publications. These
images were also added to
the Urban finding aid. Columbia
will continue to add new
images as they are created.
|
