Off the Wall and into a Drawer: Managing a Research Collection of Political Posters

Scholars exploit an ever-expanding corpus of evidence in their research, including materials that have fallen traditionally outside the purview of most repositories' collecting policies. This article examines political posters as an example of this useful but undercollected class of materials, from the vantage point of their research value and the challenges they pose to institutions that collect them. Such challenges include the nontraditional production and distribution modes that make acquisition of political posters difficult; the lack of consensus on cataloging methods; the preservation problems arising from the political poster's function to communicate quickly but ephemerally in public spaces; and the technical and copy-right issues associated with digitization. Solutions are proposed in each of these areas in an effort to identify best practices and enable institutions to assist scholars with adequate collections to meet the needs of evolving research agendas.