This Library of Congress online exhibit of The Art Wood Collection of Cartoon and Caricature called "Cartoon America" highlights a small portion of the 36,000 cartoons that make up the collection, now held at the LOC. The works range from political cartoons to comic strips.
Collection Principles:
"Cartoon America" is a curated online exhibit meant to showcase a relatively new special collection at the Library of Congress. Art Wood started collecting American cartoons in his from a young age and into his career as an editorial cartoonist. The curators explain that the "selections reflect Wood's primary collecting interests and strengths and the vitality of an innovative and evolving art form that includes political illustrations, gag cartoons, comic strips, illustrations, animation, and caricature." This online exhibit was originally a "real" show at the LOC, a fact that is hard to establish from the website.
Object Characteristics:
The images in this exhibit are JPEGs, stamped with only somewhat intrusive watermarks. An informative paragraph accompanies each item, detailing the artist or themes therein. The cartoons have been scanned in color, as the discoloration of the paper is evident in black and white cartoons. My favorite part of this exhibit is the fact that many images cannot be posted online. The tag "The Library of Congress does not have permission to display this image online" is used with the main exhibition image when the cartoon is missing. Instead of just taking out the entire object, image and description, they kept it all in, echoing the physical exhibition exactly and not tailoring online aspects. While it's great to have information about cartoonists and such, having no image is pointless.
Metadata:
Very little information is attached to each cartoon, at least up front for the public to see. General information about the author, title, medium, and year are present, along with details about where the cartoon was published (what newspaper). The user must go to the Checklist of Objects page to find information about LC numbering, possibly only of the digital copy, not the original (the "DIG" in the number leads me to believe that: LC-DIG-ppmsca-07517). Copyright information is also listed. A catalog (for sale at the gift shop!) goes with this exhibit, and it seems that the website is just copying the basic information that would be in the book.
Intended Audience:
Since this online exhibition directly copies the actual exhibition, I would say the audience is anyone interested in the collections of the Library of Congress. Artists or historians would like this exhibit, especially the political cartoons in this highly politicized year. I think little thought went in to a virtual audience, and the LOC probably figured (rightly) that graphic objects with few words and pretty pictures will attract most anyone, and I can see the tourists streaming through this exhibit at the Jefferson Building just because they are there. It is a very educational and descriptive show, but with missing images online, the impact is much less for the virtual user.
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