Ali Fujino

From Discourse-3

Among all the kite items that we have amassed in our 13 years as the Drachen Foundation, the Cody Collection has been one of our most interesting.

What has happened since 1996?

After the auction, our purchases were shipped back to Seattle by Sotheby’s of London. The cargo went by sea, and we anxiously awaited its arrival. Like any shipment, the items were subject to customs clearance, and without much difficulty, all the items were safely delivered to our front door. Unfortunately, the small house that we operated in at that time was not equipped to take 25-foot-long spars. We had no choice but to break down the crates on our sidewalk and hand carry the large kites into the house.

Stabilizing the collection was the first matter of operation. We were sad to find that the original Sotheby auction numbers (tags) had almost all fallen off the correct pieces. Having those numbers were the best identification system for the items, as they were the first numbers assigned to the pieces since brought to the public. (For almost 83 years, these pieces were in storage, owned by the Cody heirs.)

Most of the items were in good to excellent condition. Care had to be given to the fragile items, glass negatives and kites frayed and worn from flight, age, and poor storage. Our work was set out for us, and each item had to be inspected, logged, and numbered. Each piece had to be photographed.

Once the collection was numbered, the Foundation began to meet the criteria of sharing our collection, and photographic images of each item traveled to various countries for study. Many of the kites were desired to be examined, and a loan system for various kites was implemented.

The next step was finding affordable and functional museum quality acquisition software to database the collection. After testing and pricing the various programs, we settled on a company known as PastPerfect.

Work began on designing a plan to digitize the slides. We solicited companies who were qualified to do the work and worked out a timeline to schedule the digitizing of over 500 pieces. Once the items were digitized, we had to check the office numbers with the image numbers to make sure all the pieces were numbered correctly. Finding the right data entry personnel was also a task that we had to address. Accuracy of entry is required, and some individuals have the focus to match numbers with photos and to systematically identify each item using the same nomenclature.

Once the items were in the computer and general descriptions were assigned, we enlisted the help of two well qualified Cody experts, Jean Roberts and Paul Chapman.

Funding was found to send Simon Bond from our office in Seattle to England, hand carrying over 400 printouts of the Cody photos. It was our intent to have the two look at and annotate each photo, providing information that we did not have in our database. Extremely enthusiastic and open in sharing their expertise and time, they spent the last part of their summer working together, cross referencing the photos.

100 YEARS OF CODY: CODY COLLECTION ONLINE

Scott Skinner

How long does it take to curate a collection and put it up online? The Drachen Foundation can now speak from experience, and the answer is not pretty – almost 10 years!

In a small organization it takes a fair amount of prioritization to make sure things get done. So it was with the Cody Collection, purchased for the Foundation at the Sotheby’s auction in 1996 (see the Drachen Foundation Kite Journal #25 [2]). Taking care of the glass-plate negatives, photographs, papers, and actual kites has been an ongoing priority from which we have learned many of our archival practices.

But making the collection truly useful has been another problem completely. The Foundation has traveled several of the kites for study, it has shipped copies of the paper archive, and it has offered Cody kite plans for sale. All these efforts have been appreciated, but have been aimed at a few recipients. Putting the archive online would drastically increase the number of people worldwide with access to this information.

It is with great pride that I announce that the Cody Collection is now online at the Drachen Foundation website.

Circumstances contributed to the success of this project. Simon Bond was our almost- full-time summer intern, there was a break in Drachen projects, and new computer capacity was added. With Simon driving the train, documents were scanned, photos digitized, and kites photographed. Simon also traveled to England to work with Cody experts Jean Roberts and Paul Chapman to annotate the photo collection. This was a massive job which will be a continuing work-in-progress as more information surfaces from Cody enthusiasts worldwide.

So now it’s up to you, the user, to give us feedback on the archive. If you have additional information about any pictures or documents, we’d like to hear it. The Foundation will post its policy on the use and reproduction of all archival items.

VISIT THE CODY COLLECTION ONLINE:

www.drachen.org click “Online Catalog”

1. FRMS stands for Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society. Cody was made a Fellow in November of 1902, following his meteorological kiting experiments in Newcastle that same year.
2. “Cody Collection Coup“in the Drachen Foundation Kite Journal: www.drachen.org/journals/journal25/25-1/Cody.pdf