Photo Archiving

The Town of Marana has a growing collection of photos that have been donated by members of the community over the past several years. Having perused the current collection of physical photo prints for various projects with the Town, it has become more and more evident of the need to establish a set archiving system. This is no easy task as currently multiple people are working with the photo collection for their respective projects and, particularly in the world of digital photos, some people have access to photos that others may not know about.

Several challenges arise from this; a lack of accountability over who has access to what files, an inaccurate depiction of the full collection in existance, no established database describing where the photos came from, who donated them, or what the photos are of (pictures of people, landscapes, buildings, etc).

Luckily, the Town is still in the early stages of their photo library that this can be easily curtailed and transformed into a comprehensive photo archiving system that will make future projects all the more easier to perform. Having run into several barriers in my Marana Heritage project, I've decided to look further into what was necessary for improving the process so as to make my project smoother as well as will assist others in theirs.

First of all, the current collection has a fascinating aray of historical events specific to the Marana area. This includes captures of the old Marana downtown before I10 demolished it, farm production in the 1940's, school children in the 1920's, and old family photos of individuals who played prominant roles in Marana's growing government.

It is important to establish a filing system with the current collection that then can be built upon with future donations from the community. To get an idea of what to expect, I decided to contact the Arizona Historical Society and see what they did for accepting donations to see if it would shed any light on what the current archiving structure would require.

While I initially thought that a photo release and description form would suffice for this project (and therefore open the door for any donation to come in, which is similar to what happens now), I realized that there's more to beginning an archive than getting permissions and finding out what the photographs were of. The Arizona Historical Society has a process where a committee considers each of the donations, and decides if it will fit the needs of the library. A form accompanies this process to aid the committee in understanding the photo so then a discussion can be held on its relevance. The next step is actually acquiring  information from the donator and establishing permissions so that once the photo is in the library, the Society (and the donator) are aware of how the photo may be used and all the legal implications that come with it.

While any photo pertaining to Marana history might be considered important to the Town, I've realized during the duration of my photo projects that many times it's about the photo format. For official printed publications, the image must be original, clear, and of high quality. If they are scanned/digital images, they are usually preferred to be at 300 dpi in TIFF format, which allows for a non-compressed image that can then be transformed into any format.

An initial screening process of donations might be very helpful in determining what files on hand meet these qualifications. If it doesn't, at least we will be aware of that. It will also help determine how the photo will be filed away and how it can be recalled for specific purposes. All these considerations can be accounted for before a photo is accepted, and then once it is, permissions can be established.

Most importantly, I think there should be a scanning system so that every physical photo in the library is accounted for in digital format. This would make a lot of jobs a lot easier in the areas of searching and obtaining specific images.

Hopefully these things can be achieved, particularly soon while the physical collection is still manageable. There are so many amazing photos in the library, and it would be great if they were all accounted for in a great archiving system.