New Year, New Guides

For those of you conducting architecture-related research, we have updated our two Research Guides. Tulane University Libraries employ LibGuides, a content management system developed by the folks at Springshare. In January, we migrated to LibGuides 2.0 v2 and these are the results.

Depending on the nature of your inquiry, either of the guides may be more beneficial than the other. One focuses on general architecture research, and the other is more specific to historic preservation and heritage conservation issues. For genealogists conducting research regarding ancestral properties, the historic preservation guide may prove the most helpful.

Historic Preservation Research Guide
http://libguides.tulane.edu/historic_preservation

Architecture Research Guide
http://libguides.tulane.edu/architecture

New Year, New Guides

We've made some new year changes to our research guides:

Architecture Research Guide
http://libguides.tulane.edu/architecture

Historic Preservation Research Guide
http://libguides.tulane.edu/historic_preservation

CFP: Nationalism & The City

CRASSH Conference, Cambridge, United Kingdom - February 2012

Applicants are encouraged to engage with the existing theoretical literature on nations, nationalism and the city. Suggested focal points include: urbanization/modernization and the conditions of nationalism’s emergence; Urban intellectual networks and the global diffusion of nationalism; Cities as battle-space and/or as sites for mobilization; National unity and the urban/rural ‘divide’; the city as metaphor for nation; Globalizing cities, ‘post-nationalism’, and notions of urban reclamation; Cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and layers of belonging; Multiculturalism, heterogeneity and the urban; and disintegration, dystopia and ‘spaces of alterity’.

A special emphasis will be placed on integrating the insights of those focused on dynamics in the city and those addressing the broader phenomenon of nationalism, to enliven debates on space, identity, and politics and to illuminate important convergences and contradictions, conjunctures and disjunctures.

The task for researchers is as follows: how are we to conceptualize the role of cities/urban environments in the origins/spread/perpetuation/undermining of nations and nationalism?

For guidelines & additional information, see: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1684/

Visual Literacy Now

Visual literacy initiatives have grown in popularity, and moved beyond the Arts and Design Colleges. A particulary noteworthy international and interdisciplinary collaboration is Visual-Literacy.org. Participating faculty include engineers, designers, computer scientists and physicists. Online tutorial modules are available for business and engineering students.

Above is a plan of London's Soho District (1845) that demonstrates what University of Lugano Communication Science professor Riccardo Mazza calls Graphics for Explorative Analysis:

"Graphics are also a mean for finding and identifying structures and properties in a given data set (Card, et al, 1999). The special properties of visual perception of data may facilitate the finding of relationships, trends, revealing hidden patterns, or as Bertin (1981, p. 16) says, 'it is the visual means of resolving logical problems.' To illustrate. . . [on this map] black dots represent individual deaths from cholera and "x" marks the position of the water pumps. The map allowed Dr. John Snow to observe that most of the deaths . . . were concentrated around the Broad Street water pumps, which was discovered to be the source of diffusion of cholera in the area (Tufte, 1983)." [Visual Literacy Demo Tutorial: Visualization for Engineering and Communication. Viewed 20.04.2009 at http://www.visual-literacy.org/pages/demo.htm].

To read more on visualization/nomenclature/academics of, click here for the group's recommended reading list.

Conducting Research in the SEAA

The Southeastern Architectural Archive (SEAA) is a secure closed-stack facility consisting of a large body of architectural materials in many different formats: drawings, specifications, photographs, diapositives, blueprints, etc. We have approximately 900,000 discrete large-format items and over 100,000 photographic works. In many instances, the SEAA retains the only extant copy of the project work.

To prevent unnecessary harm to fragile materials, we prohibit browsing through collections. In order to facilitate your research, we strongly encourage researchers to make an appointment with SEAA staff by calling the department at (504) 865-5699.

Access to the SEAA is provided by appointment with department staff in the Reading Room, located in 300 Jones Hall at 6801 Freret Street. Access to SEAA holdings is provided through Tulane University’s Library Catalog, SEAA’s online finding aids and card catalog.

Tulane University’s Library Catalog is the best place to begin research on your topic. Both the School of Architecture Library, located in Richardson Memorial, and the Louisiana Collection, located in 200 Jones Hall, retain strong holdings of published materials related to regional architectural history.

The Southeastern Architectural Archive’s online finding aids list individual projects by known identification (building name, patron, and/or street address). Researchers can search an individual collection finding aid by using the “find” feature within the portable document format (pdf) file. Researchers can search across multiple collections’ finding aids by using an Internet search engine such as google, and by entering known information (building name, patron, or street address) in quote marks followed by the qualifier “Southeastern Architectural Archive.”

Not all collection inventories are online. Researchers may consult the SEAA card catalog, located in the Reading Room, during our regular business hours. Card catalog indexing is based on information recorded on the project work, perhaps by building name, patron and/or street address. Knowing this information prior to arrival at the SEAA will expedite the research process.

Other tips:

The SEAA maintains supplementary materials to assist researchers in finding information about the built environment in the Gulf Region. We retain historic atlases, Sanborn maps of New Orleans (coverage dating from 1876), New Orleans city directories (from 1856), and a growing collection of trade catalogs and manuals.

Wayne Everard’s “How to Research Your House (or Other Building) in New Orleans” provides a step-by-step guide to using local repositories.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers preserves a sizable collection of historic aerial photographs of the region.

The New Orleans Public Library maintains an online street name index of its building plans.

The Historic New Orleans Collection’s electronic search facility, Mint Online, allows researchers to query its library, manuscripts, and museum holdings simultaneously.

Tulane University’s School of Architecture Slide Library is the home of the New Orleans Virtual Archive (NOVA), a growing collection of photographic images of the city and plans for its renewal.

Our staff:

Dr. Keli Rylance (krylance@tulane.edu)

Head, Southeastern Architectural Archive and School of Architecture Library

(504) 247-1806

Kevin Williams (kevinw@tulane.edu)

Library Associate, Southeastern Architectural Archive

(504) 865-5699

Beginnings

Researchers starting a new project to find information about the built environment in New Orleans should consult Wayne Everard's guide, written in 1986, but no less helpful today than it was over twenty years ago. At the time he was writing, Wayne was a reference archivist at the New Orleans Public Library and his step-by-step online booklet provides a strong foundation to the research process.

For those interested in historic Geographic Information Systems (GIS) documentation, I would recommend:

Electronic

Robinson's Atlas, 1883
Provided by the courtesy of the New Orleans Notarial Archives.

Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970
Subscription-based database available to Tulane University faculty, staff, and students. For TU-affiliates who are trying to access the database from off-campus, click here for instructions.

Library of Congress's Map Collections
Digitized versions of some of the national library's 4.5 million maps, searchable by keyword, geographic location, creator, title, or subject.

Louisiana State Museum Map Database, 1709-2003
Digitized versions of some of the Louisiana State Museum's cartographic holdings.

Photographic

New Orleans District Aerial Photograph Index
Maintained by the New Orleans District Corps of Engineers and managed by Edwin Betbeze.

Graphic

These repositories maintain holdings of historic printed maps of New Orleans and Louisiana:

Louisiana Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries

The Historic New Orleans Collection

The Louisiana Map Collection, New Orleans Public Library

The Louisiana State Museum

Louisiana Collection, Louisiana and Special Collections Department, University of New Orleans
Maps are cataloged in iLink at University of New Orleans. Researchers may limit search by cataloging record format "MAP."