Mike,

 

As curator of a small historical society, owner of an 1845 historic home and underground railroad cabin, I, too, came across many photos and negatives of restoration over the years—beginning in the late 1970s, through the 1980s and early 1990s; the restoration of one of the rooms in the house, from 2008-2011 (during my tenure), was documented for grant reporting and future reference.  The old photos and negatives were not accessioned as part of the collection, but they were treated as items that required preservation.  The photos were organized in date order and placed in sleeves, as were the negatives (many of these negatives were in a jumbled mess interspersed with the jumbled photos).  These sleeves were then placed in a 3-ring binder and kept in the office area of the historical society as research material.  The early photos were invaluable to learning what the rooms looked like before the work took place, and during the restoration.  The cabin had been moved from 2 other locations (the first was its original site, and second, a park), and photographs were taken as it was being rebuilt on the historical society grounds in 1990.  Just like the photos helped me understand what happened when , future generations of employees can benefit from this organized information.

 

Best of luck to you!

Alison

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael Vogt
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 1:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Photo COllection

 

Hi Folks,

 

I am wondering if any of you have photos of restoration work that has taken place at your museum or historic home and how they are treated.  I just discovered that we have about 1000 from some restoration work that was completed on a historic home in 2004 showing men repairing a roof, leaks in ceilings, exposed underground pipes, etc.  All of these images have been accessioned as part of our photo collection.  It seemed like a complicated issue to me because this places them to a higher standard of care than if they were just documentary style images to be used for reference by staff in the future.  It also means the difference between having them in a cheap binder on a shelf or in a fairly expensive archival box taking up valuable shelf space in a collections storage area.  While the information they contain is useful to us, their historic value can probably be debated.

 

Any suggestions would be most helpful!

 

Thanks,

 

Mike