Discovering Photographer Noel Brotherston : A Personal Journey Through a Fashion Archive

In late 2022, Auckland Libraries received a significant donation of fashion photography negatives by Noel Brotherston (1932–1997). Most of the images date from 1968 to 1969. For me, it marked the beginning of a piece of work to make this substantial archive discoverable. Of the nearly 19,000 frames in the collection, over 7,000 now include metadata and are available to view on Kura Heritage Collection Online . Creating metadata for this collection turned out to be more revealing and more rewarding than I had expected. Metadata is generally defined as data about data. It records information such as format, dimensions, media type, and other technical or descriptive details. As dry as that may sound, effective metadata is essential – it helps users locate, search, and make sense of content. At Auckland Libraries, those of us creating metadata for photography collections work in spreadsheets adding descriptions, keywords, subject headings, and relevant notes for each image. Thankfully...