John G. Blog #5 Musicians and Their Pets

Musicians and Their Pets

Musicians and Their Pets is a collection of digitized photographs from the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library from Yale University. I found this collection on the Smithsonian's "Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web" link. As the title of the collection implies, the collection includes photographs of various musicians and their pets. Unfortunately, this is all that the collection includes.

Collection Principles

I was unable to locate any information about the collection principles. Based on the photographs that are included in the collection, one can only assume that these photographs have been digitized and put into a collection because they come from notable musicians in history. There was no "About" page on this website. There is only an email included Julie.Niemeyer@yale.edu for contact information.

Object Characteristics

The collection only includes photographs. No other types of media or art are included. Photographs from the following musicians are included in the collection: Benny Goodman, Charles Ives, Deems Taylor, Vladamir and Wanda Horowitz, John Kirkpatrick, Cole Porter, Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, Fred and Rose Plaut, Virgil Thomson, David Stanley Smith, Horatio Parker, and Robert Shaw. Oh, and "Staff Pets" are also included in the collection. Unfortunately, there was very little bibliographic information for the staff's pets as well.

Metadata

There is very little metadata presented for each photograph. Each photograph has a title and sometimes includes a brief description or annotation specifying which collection the photograph comes from. I was disappointed to see that such little information was included for each photograph. It is unknown if the bibliographic information does not exist or if there was no effort put into the collection since it involves such a random and obscure topic (Musicians and Their Pets). It is a little shocking to find that this collection, which is associated with Yale University, is so poorly put together. I was expecting more from them.

Intended Audience

Well, since there was such little information about the collection posted, one has to assume that this collection was intended for music historians and aficionados. I don't know of anyone else who would be interested in learning about the pets of deceased musicians.