Hello,

I'm posting this info on behalf of a colleague who is not subscribed to the
listserv.

Caroline Forcier Holloway
Film and Broadcasting
Library and Archives Canada
Ottawa, ON
[log in to unmask]

_____________________________________________
De : Rodger Andrew 
Envoyé : 31 août, 2006 15:31
À : [log in to unmask]
Objet : Photographs processing procedures.

I don't know if this will cover "processing procedures", but the SEPIA
people have some very good ideas about archives and phtoographs.  



Subject: Describing photograph collections

SEPIA descriptions of photograph collections

Within the framework of the EU-funded Safeguarding European
Photographic Images for Access (SEPIA) project
<URL:<http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/>, the working group on
descriptive models has been working on an advisory report to provide
recommendations on how to describe a photographic collection. A
draft version of this report is now available for comments at:
<URL:http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/workinggroups/wp5/advisory30.pdf>
(PDF, 1619 KB)

The task of the working group has been to analyse existing methods
to describe photographs and devise a basic model. The SEPIA model
will be presented in an advisory report and applied in a software
tool. The draft report contains an extensive overview of the
multi-level structure and individual elements of the model, a
recommended mapping to Qualified Dublin Core and a summary of core
elements. The core elements are meant to be used as guidelines for
institutions that wish to have a basic description model for their
photo collection. The model as a whole provides a more detailed set
of guidelines.

The final version of the advisory report (and the software tool that
will implement it) is scheduled for August 2003. We would very much
appreciate to receive your comments before the 28th of April. Please
feel free to contact me for any additional information.

The SEPIA working group on descriptive models consists of:

    Stockholm City Museum
    Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority
    National Library of Spain
    Finnish Museum of Photography
    European Commission on Preservation and Access

Edwin Klijn
SEPIA Working group on Descriptive Models,
+31 20 551 08 47

As for "processing procedures" -- these will vary from institution to
institution and depend on a host of factors including how closely you wish
to hew to rules such as RAD; what your clientele expects of you; how easily
you want to make your photography available to the public (and to yourself);
how valuable your photography is as a part of all your collections; how your
physical holdings facilities work.....

RAD says that everything in a series or file should be described as part of
that file or series.   So if there's a handful of photos in a series, they
should be described in that series.  This is useful -- sometimes.   More
generally people are interested in knowing whether or not there are
photographs -- not whether there are 

photographs in a given series.   And the series title and description often
has little to do with the image contents of the photographs found in the
series.   For this reason, I usually try to convince people to organize
photographs as a separate series; but with the proviso that the photographs
can be traced back to their origin within a given file or series through
that info being noted on the envelope in which they are located.

If your institution separates material according to media type (for 
storage and conservation as well as service reasons) then it is usually more
useful to describe the photographs as a separate series.   But if your
institution misguidedly thinks that everything is a variation on textual
records and therefore should be stored together then probably the best way
of handling and describing the photos is as part of the series or file in
which they're found.....

My own institution has over 35,000 containers of photographs, containing
about 25 million images, so perhaps what we do won't scale to other
institutions.

Andrew Rodger
Photo Archivist
Library and Archives Canada

[log in to unmask] 

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org.
For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>