I am involved
in a grant-funded digitization project and disagree with several colleagues who
believe the backs of photographs should be scanned because they contain
important metadata, such as dates, accession numbers, and subjects. We all agree this information is
important and must be captured, but, in my opinion, that’s the purpose of
the metadata fields in the software we’re using. The writing on the backs was done at
some point for administrative and informational purposes, as is often the case
in archival collections, but in itself it has no particular historical
significance, nor was it intended to be part of the images themselves. Therefore, as long as the information is
recorded in the database and is searchable, I can see no reason for digitizing
it. To me, this is a different case
than, say, historical postcards, where you probably would scan both sides
because postcards are intentionally two-sided (if that makes any sense) and the
writing on the back has an intended connection with the image beyond the
functions of metadata.
Those of us who
share my view are primarily archivists, whereas my dissenting colleagues are
artists. I suspect they are more
concerned with the entire physical object and believe that we would somehow be
violating its integrity by not digitizing everything. But for me, it’s the image that is
the focus here, and recording the metadata in the proper database fields is
sufficient. I can’t remember
coming across collections of digitized images that included the backs, and
scanning them seems to me a waste of time, effort, and space. I’d greatly appreciate it if those
of you who are involved with digitization would weigh in with your opinions. Obviously I have strong views of my own
on this, but I want to be fair and make sure there’s not an issue here
that I just don’t get.
Thanks.
Paul
Paul Schlotthauer
Librarian and Archivist
Assistant Professor
Pratt Institute Libraries
200 Willoughby Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11205
718-636-3686
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