Cooper Union (Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture)

The Cooper Union will catalog, rehouse, and digitize original photographic records documenting nearly 3,000 student design projects dating from the 1930s to 2006. This core collection documents the thinking of architectural education leaders behind the major shifts in architectural teaching in the 20th and 21st centuries. The collection is difficult to access, resulting in long wait times and exposing the materials to repeated handling. The project will produce approximately 24,000 digital master files with accompanying metadata of drawings, models, and ephemera; digital master files with accompanying metadata of 320 audio cassettes and two linear feet of design studio texts; fully processed, archivally housed and cataloged collection records; a searchable, web-based public Collective Access platform populated with all permissioned, digitized material and item-level metadata, descriptions, and contextual information; a folder-level EAD finding aid and a collections level MARC21 record that are available to researchers via well-established bibliographic utilities; and a clearly defined long-term sustainability plan.