Cline Library Digital Archives: Glen Canyon Resources

The building of the Glen Canyon Dam—which created Lake Powell in Arizona and Utah—was controversial at the time (the early sixties) and remains so today, as is evident in an ongoing campaign for the removal of the dam. At issue was the destruction of a canyon that rivaled the Grand Canyon in size and beauty. The Glen Canyon Resources Digital Archives project is an initiative of the Cline Library at Northern Arizona University that documents Glen Canyon before the dam, the building of the dam, and the ongoing controversy. Many of the links on the homepage are to other websites, but there are a good number of links to digitized materials in various media, including newsclippings, government documents, oral history transcripts, photographs, filmclips and sound files. There are also some interesting digital maps. Many of the objects, however, are of low quality and the organization of the collection and the search function are confusing.

Collection Principles

The collection is rather small. Though no collection principles are stated, the exhibit strives to give voice to both sides of the controversy about the dam. Presumably, the resources that have been digitized were judged to be among the most crucial or interesting. The site explains that “the library's holdings include additional resources which are not yet digitized” and provides a link to submit queries about additional materials.

Object Characteristics

The still images are JPEGs of good quality. The resolution is generally in the range of 650pixels in each dimension. The other objects are generally not of good quality. The film clips I looked at were so small (picture size, I mean) and of such poor resolution as to be practically useless; the film audio is acceptable. The images of documents are JPEG scans of middling to low quality. In some cases they are illegible and useless. Both the audio and video files open in RealPlayer. The RealAudio clips are 96kbps. The RealVideo clips are 47kbps.

Metadata

Within a collection of this size, searching might not be necessary. But the search function provided on the page, called a “Quick Archives Search,” seems to return far more relevant digital images than are easily accessed by browsing. Ultimately, I was unsure of the scope of the collection (or the search), and I was not confident that I was seeing all there was to see. The photos returned by the search are in large collections (100-200 usually) and there is rich collection-level metadata that is basically bibliographic in form but provides some information similar to that found in archival finding aids. The metadata for individual images include tiles (usually “constructed” titles), original size, photographer name, date, call number and film type. Some contain informative captions. The metadata for video and clips provide titles, names of creators and subjects, duration and rights. The film and audio clips are accompanied by bibliographic records including call numbers, summary descriptions and Library of Congress Subject Headings. This metadata would provide access through the library catalog.

Audience

The audience for this collection is probably fairly diverse, including environmental activists, politicians, students, and citizens, especially in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. Personally, I came to the site as a result of reading Edward Abbey’s account of a trip down the canyon.