Digital Scans and Photographic Prints Arranged in Groups (LOTs)

The Highsmith Archive consists of negatives and transparencies available for viewing as either digital scans or photographic prints, as well as photographs Highsmith made digitally and that exist only as digital files . Preservation considerations prevent public users from directly handling the negatives and transparencies, which are kept in cold storage.

The photographer, Carol Highsmith, organized her images by subject matter in groups (called LOTs). The Library created catalog records that summarize each group of closely related views and link to sets of any available online images. The searchable catalog record describes the following characteristics of each LOT.

• the photographic media represented in the group
• when the photographs were made
• subjects depicted
• additional notes about the group.

LOTs That Include Digital Scans

LOTs received since 2002 include scans Carol Highsmith created for ready online viewing of the photographs or the photographs she shot digitally.

• In some cases, such as Highsmith's extensive documentation of the Library of Congress Jefferson Building, the items in the LOTs can be searched and retrieved individually. Retrieve individual items
• In other cases, the digital images associated with a LOT cannot be searched individually, but are, instead, retrieved by selecting the "Click for more images" icon at the top of the catalog record describing the LOT. (While the catalog searches words in the body of the LOT catalog record, the catalog does not search words or item numbers found in captions for individual images within the LOT. Key terms from the captions are indexed in the LOT record.)

Selecting "Click for more images" generates a display in a new window of all the individual images in the LOT, along with:

• the caption associated with the image (supplied by the photographer)
• a digital reproduction number
• a negative or transparency number.

First row of "click for more images" display for LOT 13556, Photographs of the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial

Retrieve Highsmith LOT records with digital scans

LOTs That Do Not Include Digital Scans

Photographic prints provide access to the images in these six LOTs, which the Library received in 1992. Request the LOT in the Prints & Photographs Reading Room.

Retrieve Highsmith LOT records without digital scans

Determining Format and Size of Originals

Format and size information can be helpful in planning photoduplication requests (see the Photoduplication Service's price list) and serves as an indication of the type of equipment used to make an image. To determine the format and size of the original photographs, look at the series codes--the letters and numbers appearing at the beginning of the reproduction numbers assigned to individual photographs by the Library. The series code appears in each digital scan caption or is written on the back of a print. (Note: The digitally scanned images represent the way the photographer interpreted her negatives and transparencies, so prints ordered from the negatives and transparencies may vary from the scans that display in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.)