UA UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH & CREATIVE ACTIVITY CONFERENCE
2022

 * Third Place / Humanities

The Fashion Archive @ UA Goes Digital: Creating and Testing a New Records System for a Historic and Contemporary Fashion Collection
(poster presentation)

Anna Kearney
Madeleine Leidner
Morgan Igou
Fashion Retailing  & Commerce and Business Administration Students (Class of 2023)

Dr. Marcy L. Koontz, Faculty Advisor

Radical changes have been taking place in a collection of historic and contemporary objects of dress established by Miss Henrietta Thompson in the 1930s, currently housed in Mary Harmon Bryant Hall. A new curator was appointed in spring 2018, who has implemented professional procedures and practices to ensure that this collection, now known as The Fashion Archive, continues to thrive. One of the many challenges has been the inconsistency in record keeping. There have been various faculty member curators over the decades, which resulted in a variety of guidelines and methods of object documentation.
The resulting data, however, has never been verified, and missing or incorrect information has never been rectified.

This poster examines the reconciliation process of 276 records in the collection, and the development and testing of a concise, standardized, easy to use system from which the data can be cleanly and verifiably migrated to a collections management system. The process included the following: architected, designed, and developed a spreadsheet, identified and digitized various types of documents, and developed a logistical system for identifying the location of objects within the high-density storage unit.

This project was conducted as part of the inaugural intern program in The Fashion Archive during the 2021-2022 academic term. Once complete, the depth and breadth of this collection will finally be known, and more importantly, it will ensure that all the information for each object, from its donor to its precise location within storage, is accurately recorded and accessible from a digital device.