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 Archivistmdab@st-andrews.ac.uk

Jane CampbellResearch Cataloguer and Database Administrator

University of St Andrews Library

Photographic Collection

Pamela CranstonPhotographic Research and Preservation Officer