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The Unique Challenges of a Photographic Collection
Marc BoulayPhotographic ArchivistUniversity of St Andrews
North Street, looking West [St Andrews] Thomas Rodger, ca.1860
Presentation Overview
• About our collection
• What we do
• Challenges of a photographic collection
• Our aspirations and Emu
• A few photographs
1839 – Photography is invented
British French
Photographic History & St Andrews
• 1840s – Photography comes to St Andrews
• W.H.F. Talbot
• Sir David Brewster
David BrewsterBy Thomas Rodger, ca.1854
University of St Andrews Library Photographic Collection
• Collection takes shape in 1970s
• 700,000 original photographs
• 130,000 digital images
• 65,000 images online
The Sphinx and Great Pyramid.Francis Frith, 1857
Collection Care and Access
• Special Collections Department
• Facilities, environmental conditions
• Staff responsibilities: – Research
– Cataloguing
– Preventative conservation
– Supervision
– Education & training
• Community resource for consultation, research, viewing
• Supporting academic research
Rights and Commercial Use
• Rights and permissions as primary income
• Existing workflows were slow
• Make technology work FOR us
• E-commerce
• Small staff
.... dwindling resources
……….Time to invest!
Why Emu?
• Multiple databases needed centralising
• Streamlining workflow and infrastructure
• Increasing commercial potential
• Building on 15 years of research
• Required a DAMS solution
Access - Relationships - Knowledge
• Cultural heritage is not located IN objects… it results from the EXCHANGE OF IDEAS about them.
– Access is crucial
– If they don’t know it’s there, what’s the point?
• Knowledge is establishing relationships between different types of data and info
….This is why we’ve chosen EMu
Scott Monument, Edinburgh.1843
The Unique Challenges…
• Historically marginalised
• No established home
• Not museum objects
• Not written documents
Miss Margaret McCandlish. Salted paper print, 1843-1845 McCulloch's Tomb, Greyfriars.
Salted paper print, 1843-1845
Sir [Robert] Lambert Playfair. Albumen print, 1865
Unidentified Woman.Albumen print, ca. 1865
Scientific and botanical specimens ca. 1900s
Muybridge…..100 plates…Lost and found!
Photography would do for visual information what the printing press did for the written word
An Inherently Reproducible Medium
Our Hierarchy Using Catalogue Records
How Accession Lots Relate to Catalogue Records
Often Overlooked Key Access Points
• Multiple dates ….Capture date / Print date
• Multiple authors / creators / assoc. parties …photographer, printer, publisher, sitter / subject
• Distinguishing Format / Medium / Dimensions
RAF [Leuchars].George Middlemass Cowie, September 1948
Digitisation and Cataloguing as a Tool …Not an End
• Access, dialogue, use and momentum are the objective.
• As such….
When considering “Quantity vs Quality ---
…Quantity wins!”
The perfect shouldn’t get in the way
of the possible!
Motorcycle Races, St Andrews.George Middlemass Cowie, July 1936
To conclude…
• Please approach us if you’re interested in learning more about what we do
• Although still in the development stage, we look forward to joining the EMu community
• We’d be very interested in learning how others have dealt with photographs
[Lake Como].Bosetti, Bellagio, ca.1880
Thank You!
Footway near Tay Bridge, Dundee.George Allan Little, ca.1969
Marc BoulayPhotographic [email protected]
Jane CampbellResearch Cataloguer and Database Administrator
University of St Andrews Library
Photographic Collection
Pamela CranstonPhotographic Research and Preservation Officer