Archives: The Stereotypical Images Teaching Collection

This week I looked at the recently released Stereotypical Images Teaching Collection accessible from the Temple Libraries website. The collection appears to primarily derive from the Blockson Collection, but also incorporates some Special Collections materials, particularly the Temple Sheet Music collection. My interest in graphic materials, and longstanding interest in old cartoons, drew me to think about the pros and cons of organizing a collection based on graphic stereotypes.

One aspect of digital collections that could help or hinder researchers is the ability to easily remove materials from their original order. The Stereotypical Images Collection imposes organization based on the content of the image, not its context. The person in charge of putting the collection together decided what is and is not a stereotypical depiction. Stereotypes are tricky things. From a historical perspective, taking the stereotype out of its context can make it more difficult to understand. right now, the content is solely African American, but once other groups are included the separation of sub-groups within the collection could potentially enforce categorical stereotypes.  

Nevertheless, I can image that an undergraduate course could easily access the material. The classes using the material would have additional context provided in class. As a teaching collection, there is a lot of potential. For an independent researcher or graduate student the collection would be useful for finding material to supplement ideas and for finding jumping off points to study particular subjects.

I know this collection is still in development, there are a few things I would like to see. In addition to the list of courses that use the collection, I would like a guide that suggests how this can be a teaching resource. I would also like to see some type of reflective writing about what it means to include an image in this collection. Both of these things would involve inquiries into what a stereotype is and provide some additional context to the collection.

A completely unrelated note: I was watching Supernatural a few days ago (something from Season 9) and was both surprised and little proud that even though the artifact the characters fawned over in the forefront lived in a mysterious, wooden box that would never hold any type of historic material, they did have legit, plain grey archival boxes as props in the background. Archives on TV!