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Re: So How long should you keep photographs?



I don't find it so surprising that photographs go through the same sort of
selection process that paper records do.  As with the latter, the explosion of
photographs in the last half of the Twentieth Century screams out for some
culling process.  Archivists, who have had no trouble developing standards for
what papers to keep and which to discard, seem unwilling to bring that same
discernment to photographs.  However, those who deal with photographs on a daily
basis appear to have instituted "photograph management" solution to the problem
that records managers and archivists have created to deal with paper records.
The difference is that the solution as described in this example is market
driven, with TIME and the agent getting first dibs, which is not the case with
paper records.  Archivists need to insinuate themselves into the process somehow
and make sure the historical record is served.  I don't believe that means
saving every photograph ever taken at every White House event just in case a
participant might eventually be involved in some subsequent scandal or event.
While the previous "ex post photo" examples I recall range from the intriguing
(John Wilkes Booth at Lincoln's second inauguration) to the bizarre (Rosalyn
Carter with John Wayne Gacey) I don't think the historical record would be
seriously altered if they did not exist.

John Kelly

Peter Kurilecz wrote:

> The following url was posted on the Photohst List week during a discussion
> that encompassed all sorts of things to technical for this poor soul's mind.
> However the information in this url will surprise and shock most of us I
> think and show that we are losing in many cases a precious resource -- late
> twentieth and early 21st century news photographs
>
> http://digitaljournalist.org/issue9807/editorial.htm
>
> Peter Kurilecz
> pakurilecz@aol.com
>
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