Two point I'd like to bring up:

1) Most photographs today are taken digitally.
2) The vast majority of prints are reproductions from the original negative or slide.

I'd advocate treating digital reproductions as fully accessioned items with as much information about when and how the image was taken and production details for each intermediate step. Even for a print photograph, ideally, camera and exposure details would be recorded along with film type; development date and chemistry are recorded; and the date, materials, and process of making the print are recorded.

- Paul Koenig


On Aug 28, 2011, at 5:42 AM, Lisa Worley wrote:

> Laura-
> 
> At my last museum, a small county history museum, I grappled with the question for months. (Which was probably longer than I needed, because we had already accepted a large donation of 1000+ digital images from the local county historical commission before we ever opened our doors to the public.)  But ultimately I decided that, yes, we would accept digital files as donations-- but only for photographs. My thinking was that it was actually the information the photograph held, not the physical photograph itself, that was important to our collection. Plus, donors seemed to be much more willing to donate personal photographs if we scanned them and returned the originals. Images of other items, like uniforms, etc., would go into our research collection and not be an accessioned object in our permanent collection.   
> 
> In an effort to standardize, I created an addendum to our collections policy specifically to deal with digital born items, which also served as standards for when we were scanning/photographing our collection. If you're interested, I can send you a copy of the addendum. We also had the donors sign Image Release forms, giving us reproduction, sales, etc. rights., in addition to the standard Deeds of Gift.
> 
> I hope this helps.
> 
> Lisa
> 
> -- 
> ---
> Lisa E. Worley
> 
> https://sites.google.com/site/lisaelaineworley/
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 8:38 AM, Laura Furman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Greetings all—
> 
>  
> 
> We’re a midsized local history museum. More and more often we’re getting digital donations, with donors being more inclined to supply or allow us to scan their original image, but wanting to keep their original. 
> 
>  
> 
> In the past we have had a specific reason to keep a scan or a reproduction photo, i.e. if a uniform was donated and there is a scanned image of the soldier wearing the uniform.
> 
>  
> 
> More recently, we had a researcher come in to find photographs on her home, and upon finding the photos of her home in the collection was spurred to donate scans of photos that she had of the home.
> 
>  
> 
> So the question is, are the scans, and/or subsequent prints of the scans, accessioned? Or are these going to be treated as ancillary to the permanent collection, a sort of research file, but not given an accession number? If so how do you track the information? I’m sure that others have had to deal with this so I’m just wondering how they are being treated elsewhere.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Laura B. Furman
> 
> Curator of Collections
> 
> Midway Village Museum
> 
> 815-397-9112 x 108
> 
>  
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> ---
> Lisa E. Worley
> 
> https://sites.google.com/site/lisaelaineworley/
> 
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