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FW: Organization of Photo Collections



Brian's first posting to me.

DS

______________________________________
Daniel Sokolow, Archives Coordinator
David Taylor Archives
North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System
155 Community Drive
Great Neck, NY 11021
mailto:dsokolow@nshs.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: Brian DeLuc a [mailto:bkdeluca@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 1:41 PM
To: DSokolow@NSHS.EDU
Subject: Re: Organization of Photo Collections


I recently completed an internship at a local historical society where I was

responsible fo re-organizing their fairly extensive photo archives.  When I
first started my head was full of complex organizational schemes as well,
but I quickly realized the problem with this.  Depressingly many archival
interns had been at this collection before, and several years ago one of
them did a bang-up job of organizing the collection properly.  By the time I

got to the collection his organizational scheme was in ruins.  Titles and
series he had organized had ceased to exsist and things were completly in
the wrong folders.  Even worse, they had been replaced by an out of control
subject scheme.  The problem with this scheme was noone had an overview of
the entire collection.  I found folders labeled "downtown", "Business
district", and "Local Businesses", some with copies of the very same
pictures.

Long story short, organize it in a way that makes sense to who ever is going

to be using the collection, or you run the risk of your well-thought out
scheme ending up in the garbage can.  In that occurance even greater
disorder is likily to occur in the collection.

I ended up using a simple subject system, because it is easy for the
voluteers to understand.  Also be sure to create a subject list with
cross-references.

My second biggest concern was the physical environment of the collection.  I

can share my thoughts on that if you're interested.

Brian DeLuca

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