Laura,
We treat digital scans as accessions.  The donor is asked to sign a form that allows us to sell the photos to publishers, etc., and that we have the rights to use the photos as we wish.  

We still come across photos that were given to the museum years ago that have no accession history.  These are given a unique number that we recognize as having no donor history.

When producing two books on local history, where people brought in their scans to contribute to the book.  We considered the whole “scanning day” as one accession, but had each contributor sign the form.
David Lynx
yakimamemory.org


On 8/23/11 6:38 AM, "Laura Furman" <[log in to unmask]">[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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