Lynette Seelmeyer
Seattle Public Library
Link to Seattle Public Library homepage
Seattle Historical Photograph Collection
Link to access point for the Seattle Historical Photograph Collection
Link to contrasting Denver Public Library Maps collection page
Section 1: Introduction to the Seattle Public Library's Seattle Historical Photograph Collection
The overall mission of the Seattle Public Library is to bring people, information, and ideas together to enrich lives and build community. The digital collections of the Seattle Public Library include items selected from across the Seattle Public Library's Special Collections, and at least at the Digital Public Library of America, the library has made 13,056 items available through the DPLA digital partners. The Seattle Public Library launched its first website in 1995 after fully transitioning to a computer catalog system in 1988. Digital collections began either concurrently with the launch of the website in 1995 or shortly thereafter. The Special Collections and the digital collections drawn from Special Collections, named Special Collections Online, exist to document Seattle history from its founding to the present day and beyond with a call to action for contributions from the public. Generally, digital images in Seattle Public Library's Digital Collection are scanned as high-resolution .TIFF files on Epson equipment and converted to .JPG digital files. Image quality is very good with expected digital artifacts and ghosting due to the lowered resolution in .JPG format over .TIFF format. Metadata is very thorough for each item and includes descriptive information, notes on provenance and known copyright, and digital identifiers along with information on the digitization process of the analog item representation. Special Collections and digital collections are accessible to the public from the Seattle Public Library home page in multiple steps, but collections are easy to find and listed on the Special Collections Online home page with representative thumbnails and brief descriptions of individual collections' content and purpose. Of note is that the Special Collections room (Seattle Room) at the Central Branch of the library remains closed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to the website. The digital collections site also maintains a harmful language and DEI statement.
Section 2: Two major representative items from the Seattle Historical Photograph Collection
West Seattle Branch, Seattle Public Library, ca. 1910
This digitized, black and white photo postcard .JPG file has an image of the West Seattle Branch of the Seattle Public Library on the front and text indicators such as "place postage stamp here" and "postcard" as well as other ink and pencil handwriting describing the item and an "Art Department Seattle Public Library" stamp on the reverse (not shown) to indicate provenance. The item description in metadata includes a note that the West Branch opened on July 23, 1910 and that this postcard is believed to have been published before 1923, placing it in the public domain.
This digitized image is important because it shows a photographic representation of the West Branch of the Seattle Public Library shortly after it opened and shows not only the history of Seattle, leading to its inclusion in the Seattle Historical Photograph Collection as well as the broader Special Collections Online digital collection, but also documents a step in the history and expansion of the Seattle Public Library into branch locations. Seattle Public Library is a major library in a large metropolitan area and showing a specific moment in time in its expansion through photography is a documentation of both the library and the city's growth.
The item is a strong representation of the Seattle Historic Photograph Collection as a whole because it is a photograph representation of a specific time and civic development initiative in Seattle, Washington. Even though it is a digitized postcard and not a digitized print photograph, the front of the postcard is a photograph of the West Branch of the Seattle Public Library and so this item serves not only as a representation of Seattle history and the history of the Seattle Public Library, but also shows photographic techniques of the early 20th century.
The West Seattle Branch, Seattle Public Library, ca. 1910 digital file may be found here. It is accessible through the Seattle Public Library main page, the Seattle Public Library Special Collections Online page, the Digital Public Library of America as part of the Northwest Digital Heritage partner, and is findable through a Google search on the image itself or on "Seattle historical photographs," which brings up the Seattle Public Library and the Seattle Historical Photograph Collection at the top of the results list.
Seattle Public Library bookmobile, ca. 1960
This digitized, black and white .JPG image file is a digital representation of a film photograph print of a Seattle Public Library bookmobile, ca. 1960. There is no scan of the reverse side of the photograph, but there is another digital scan of a bookmobile film photograph print, ca. 1970 that came up in search results. The item description in metadata includes a note that the print date of the original, print photograph cannot be determined, so it is not in the public domain and is therefore only to be used under fair use law for personal or educational purposes.
This digitized image is important because it shows a photographic representation of a bookmobile used by the Seattle Public Library in the mid-20th century, which illustrates not only the history of Seattle, leading to its inclusion in the Seattle Historical Photograph Collection as well as the broader Special Collections Online digital collection, but also documents a step in both the history and outreach initiatives of the Seattle Public Library as well as a step in their use of bookmobiles when considered in conjunction with the ca. 1970 bookmobile digital image file also housed at the library. Seattle Public Library is a major library in a large metropolitan area and showing a specific moment in time in its history through photography is a documentation of both the library and the city's growth.
The item is a strong representation of the Seattle Historic Photograph Collection as a whole because it is a photograph representation of a specific time and library outreach initiative in Seattle, Washington. Additionally, this item serves not only as a representation of Seattle history but also shows photographic techniques of the mid-20th century, meriting its inclusion in the collection.
The Seattle Public Library bookmobile, ca. 1960 digital file may be found here. It is accessible through the Seattle Public Library main page, the Seattle Public Library Special Collections Online page, the Digital Public Library of America as part of the Northwest Digital Heritage partner and is findable through a Google search on the image itself or on "Seattle historical photographs," which brings up the Seattle Public Library and the Seattle Historical Photograph Collection at the top of the results list.
Section 3: Why was this collection selected and how it might be used by the general public?
I chose this collection specifically because I went to college in Washington and I love the city of Seattle for its cultural diversity, commitment to education and the arts, consistent ability to nurture rock musicians, cosmopolitan attitude and atmosphere, and beautiful surroundings. I have long been interested in the history of Seattle and wanted to know more about the city than what I currently know anecdotally, which is that it was a staging post for the Alaska and Yukon gold rush and that the level of the waterfront people see today is a several feet (about one building floor) above the original level of the waterfront, which flooded regularly during storms and had to be built over. I am also a professional photographer and find that historical photography collections contain a lot of very important information about the history and development over time of a given area that cannot be gleaned from printed documentation alone. In this case, the Seattle Historical Photograph Collection included images of the Seattle Public Library and its branches, history, and outreach even as the physical collection and its digital representations are indeed housed at the Seattle Public Library. The general public would very likely use this collection for the same reasons I did: To learn more about the history of Seattle as a metropolitan area, to see how the city developed and grew over time, and potentially to use the images as educational tools.
Section 4: How easy or difficult it is to find the Seattle Historical Photograph Collection using DPLA and Google? What does this tell us about the library’s collection policy for the digital collection? What does this tell us about the accessibility of the collection for the general public?
The Seattle Historical Photograph Collection itself was relatively easy to find in both the DPLA and Google. In DPLA, a search on "historical Seattle photographs" brings up a list of items that can be narrowed by contributing institution, in this case the Seattle Public Library. In one step, all the items indexed from the library in DPLA are available and any of them may be selected to view. Choosing "view original item" takes the user directly to the item itself in the Seattle Public Library Special Collections Online. The Seattle Public Library has contributed over 13,000 items to DPLA from various collections, including the Seattle Historical Photograph Collection, so there is a commitment on the part of the library to make their digital items widely available to the public, both within Washington and without. On Google, a search on "Seattle historical photographs" brings up a list of results that includes a link to the Seattle Historical Photograph Collection through the Seattle Public Library at the top of the results list. Having said this, the Seattle Public Library is not straightforward to use when looking for digital collections and users must know that they are looking for Special Collections Online when the access the site. The large banner link to Special Collections found by scrolling down the library's home page takes users to a featured collection (currently: The Helix, an underground newspaper published in Seattle between 1968 - 1970) and users must then navigate to the Special Collections Online page, most expediently done by clicking on the logo in the upper left corner. Digital collections may then be searched using the search bar or by looking at a two-page list of digital collections delineated by brief text and a representative thumbnail image.
The relative ease of finding the collections in Google and the collection and items in DPLA underlines Seattle Public Library 's stated commitment to people, information, and ideas together. The library's own history page states that the library committed to moving to a computer-based cataloging system in 1988 and had their first website online by 1995, so the relative ease with which digital collection items can be found through different online routes speaks to their commitment to digitization and public access going forward.
