From the perspective of your mission, which aspect of the photograph is essential to advancing your research/education goals: the physicality of the print or the image contained within.

The problem becomes great with photography which is created in a multi-step process and is inherently reproducible. With images and datasets that are created digitally, the notions of original and reproduction fall apart completely.

My instinct is to accession the scans noting the scanning as part of he provenance.

The question I would ask is: Is the physicality of an object an artifact of a particular time/place/provenance in the eyes of your mission or is it essentially "crating" that delivers intangible information?


- Paul Koenig


On Dec 17, 2010, at 9:37 AM, Sarah Griswold wrote:

> 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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