Claire B. Blog 2: Alcohol, Temperance, & Prohibition at Brown University

The digitized items in the Alcohol, Temperance and Prohibition Collection come from the Alcoholism and Addiction Studies Collection at Brown University. This collection includes over 15,000 items purchased by Charles Bishop, an antiquarian bookseller and researcher of Alcoholics Anonymous and related groups in the United States. These items, ranging from broadsides and sheet music to pamphlets and government publications, built onto Brown’s already large collection of items relating to the history of alcohol in the United States – its use, regulation, and media portrayals of the alcohol industry.

When Brown University acquired this particular collection, it initiated a project to digitize the pamphlets published by various groups leading up to prohibition, during the prohibition era, and ending with the 21st amendment in 1933, which repealed the 18th amendment from 1919 prohibiting the manufacturing, sale or transportation of alcohol.

Collection Principles

The Center for Digital Initiatives at Brown selected these pamphlets in particular because they offered visually-rich, easily accessible scans, represented a manageable segment of an enormous collection, and, importantly, they are all in the public domain, which makes this project much more easy to carry out from a copyright perspective.

Object Characteristics

The pamphlets were scanned page by page and are viewed as low and high resolution jpeg images. Archival copies were saved as TIF files. Whether searching or browsing, thumbnail images lead viewers to numerous options: viewing the images themselves (thumbnails plus a low and high res jpeg for each image), an item description (which provides a minimal amount of metadata), thumbnails of the entire pamphlet side by side (if it consists of more than one page), and a document map, which offers URLs or filenames for any file that the object is related to (e.g., for the TIF file, each jpeg, and for the metadata record itself in XML).

Metadata

Each image provides a list of basic metadata, including title, publication/creation, creators and contributors, description, subject headings (assumedly LC), and the host collection (although most of these elements simply link the viewer back to the website for the original collection, as opposed to giving a location within the library system. These items are searchable in Brown’s OPAC, though, so this can be gotten around). Each image also provides a link to a document map, though, which offers access to the entire metadata record in XML (see an example here).

The CDI home page has a documentation section that provides much more in-depth information on the descriptive standards used (Metadata Object Description Schema, or MODS, for still images) plus the technical standards as well. The CDI works closely with the faculty and students who spearhead various digital initiatives, so this information is probably really useful in the planning and implementation processes.

The basic and advanced search functions work well, but the browsing is sort of clunky. The options - by creator, publisher, or title - each offer long pages of individual listings that sometimes overlap. The aimless viewer can all view all thumbnails, which comes with 20 pages to scroll through and explore.

Intended Audience

This portion of the larger collection seems geared towards researchers of United States history, of the arts and portrayals of the various perspectives on alcohol and its sale and consumption historically, and the relationship between visual arts and political movements. The site has an "essay" section with a lengthy discussion of the various forms in the collection, and some interesting commentary on the content of the posters and pamphlets and their historical context.

As a side note, the Center for Digital Initiatives has digitized some pretty cool stuff from various university collections. I'd recommend checking it out.