I am wondering what the general wisdom is regarding the cataloging of scanned 
photographs, when the original photographs remain in a private person's 
possession. If they allow us to scan them and then use the scans as we choose, 
should we consider the scans part of our photograph collection, and add them to 
Past Perfect? For us they exist ONLY in digital format. 


The curator would like to add them to the collection so that online viewers can 
see the images, but I'm not sure that they should be accorded status equivalent 
to actual artifacts. 


We don't have any specific wording in our collection policy that addresses the 
issue of copies vs. originals, and in the case of photographs, it's a very 
thorny issue anyway. 


Thanks for any comments

Sarah Griswold
Curatorial Consultant
Curatorial Assistant, Gunn Memorial Museum, Washington, CT

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