Photograph albums, in my experience, are most valuable as
objects of accumulation.  The individual images may be
valuable as records of specific individuals or places, but
removing them from their context--in this case, an album--is
much like taking the illustrations from a book and filing them
alphabetically by subject.

The album is an object, too, after all; you lose that object
by dismantling it into its component parts.

Jenni Rodda, Curator
Visual Resources Collections
Institute of Fine Arts
1 East 78th Street
New York, NY  10021
(212) 772-5872, fax (212) 772-5807, [log in to unmask]