Archiving photographs and information

[John Brightley]

Following on from a recent comment in the 'Working Boats at Stoke Bruerne 1966' topic, I thought I would let you all know of one way of archiving your photos where you will be certain it will be saved for future generations.

 

I would encourage all of you to upload / submit photos to Geograph ( http://www.geograph.org.uk/).

 

This whole website and its collection of over 4.3 million photos (as of today's date) is being archived for the future by the UK Web Archive project (part of the British Library) http://www.webarchive.org.uk/. Also, as part of the Geograph submission process, your photos are located precisely on ordnance survey mapping, and you can add as many words to describe each photo as you wish. Photos of all dates are welcomed.

Of course when you have done this you can always post a link to them on this forum.

 

Another option available to everyone is to donate their photos to their local County Record Office. Of course, ideally, accompanying the photos there should be a record of where the photo was taken and the date. If the photos are slides, this can be done fairly easily by writing on the slide itself.

 

One other possibility in the future may be for moderators of this forum to agree with the UK Web Archive to archive this forum, of course !

 

 

[Laurence Hogg]

Knowing where to store archives and photos is always a worry. I back up our LHP archive once or twice a year onto DVD's, these are then held by several persons and therefore the archive is saved in different locations. If anything disastrous happened here then at least three other copies exist. DVD storage is relatively safe, easy to access on virtually any machine and offers a long storage life if the media is kept in a cool environment.

 

Where not to send stuff is also worth consideration, whilst the National Archive is a good location, its indexing system needs to be very accurate and easy to use, also anything held on the web can in exceptional circumstances get lost.

 

I would not use the cloud, external hard drives or memory cards as these are all slightly risky under some circumstances.

 

I would certainly not place anything in CRT archives or museums.

 

Interesting topic.

[Leo No2]

The big issue is knowing where stuff is and the rate of change of the technology we use. It is, in my experience, not a question of if technology will break but when it will break.

 

I remember backing up onto cassette tapes, then small EPROM disks, then 5.25 inch disks, then 1.44mb disks and so things go on. Very little, if any, of the technology I have mentioned is readily available now. The format of CDs has changed over time and will continue to do so. It therefore becomes a requirement to archive onto appropriate technology from time-to-time.

 

As to where it should be stored - my knowledge of the right places is sadly lacking so I will leave that to others with more experience.

[jeannette smith harrison]

Knowing where to store archives and photos is always a worry. I back up our LHP archive once or twice a year onto DVD's, these are then held by several persons and therefore the archive is saved in different locations. If anything disastrous happened here then at least three other copies exist. DVD storage is relatively safe, easy to access on virtually any machine and offers a long storage life if the media is kept in a cool environment.

 

Where not to send stuff is also worth consideration, whilst the National Archive is a good location, its indexing system needs to be very accurate and easy to use, also anything held on the web can in exceptional circumstances get lost.

 

I would not use the cloud, external hard drives or memory cards as these are all slightly risky under some circumstances.

 

I would certainly not place anything in CRT archives or museums.

 

Interesting topic.

This has always been a worry to me as I have some info on over 600 working canal boat family'

plus my own family records along with the now six folders of tales & info I have been

told by my boating relatives .Like Lawrence I back up a few times a year onto c.d. sticks & chips then copy leaving them in 2 fire proof safes @home plus copies at my Daughter's & parents. Some working boat people feel they have been tricked into handing over photo's & info to CRT who have failed to return the originals to them. Museums have a shortage of space & stuff is often archived into storage. it is a problem on what to do with info so as it can be made available for reserchers.

[Laurie Booth]

The best way to store photographs is the old fashioned way on printed paper. No gadgets etc to see them.

[John Brightley]

The best way to store photographs is the old fashioned way on printed paper. No gadgets etc to see them.

 

It is always important to save the negatives as well as the prints.

In my experience professional archives will always encourage you to save the original negatives, prints, or slides, even if you scan / digitise the images.

Never just throw away the originals - donate them to your local county record office / archive.

[DHutch]

Surprised you use DVD/CDs Laurence, it depends on the die used I am not told, and I might be out of date, but I have certainly had backup CDs fail in surprisingly short spaces of time.

Same can be said of compact USB powered HDDs, but that seems to be the usb control board rather then the drive itself.

 

I too have inbuilt hesitation about the cloud, fear of the unknown I guess, but in gernaral have learnt to trust trust and embrace it and have yet to be let down.

 

 

Daniel

[Laurence Hogg]

Surprised you use DVD/CDs Laurence, it depends on the die used I am not told, and I might be out of date, but I have certainly had backup CDs fail in surprisingly short spaces of time.

Same can be said of compact USB powered HDDs, but that seems to be the usb control board rather then the drive itself.

 

I too have inbuilt hesitation about the cloud, fear of the unknown I guess, but in gernaral have learnt to trust trust and embrace it and have yet to be let down.

 

 

Daniel

 

Daniel, I don't use CD's at all, they are too prone to light and heat and can be erased by sunlight for instance. The dye is important on DVD's, we certainly don't use cheap ones and buy the best available. The Taiwan made deep purple dye Tao Yuden are very good if you can find them, otherwise I use Panasonic which are sourced again from Taiwan. We keep negatives & slides in airtight storage containers and prints are all in albums, but everything gets digitised first.

[DHutch]

Sounds fair to me, I guess ultimately the proof is in the pudding, and if you have duplicates and a system of re-writing the disks in a time frame that they continue to work all is well.

 

I used to burn a lot of CDs and then DVDs, but now I just use a pair of large portable USB disk drives which contain everything, a third copy on the cloud for important files such as person photographs and documents, but not bulky and or replaceable files such as downloaded music and dvd's.

 

Daniel

[Arthur Brown]

Having seen the original Shackleton expedition negatives which were about 100 years old and in perfect condition, I'd suggest that a genuine silver negative is most likely to survive given fair storage (clean and dry) A genuine silver (bromide) print will last a long while, longer if selenium toned. Colour film doesn't archive Cibachrome is (or was) the most stable dye system supposedly good for years in sunlight.

 

Archiving to digital is an issue unless you are prepared to rewrite them every year which ultimately defeats the object.

[Laurie Booth]

 

It is always important to save the negatives as well as the prints.

In my experience professional archives will always encourage you to save the original negatives, prints, or slides, even if you scan / digitise the images.

Never just throw away the originals - donate them to your local county record office / archive.

Very true.

[IanM]

 

It is always important to save the negatives as well as the prints.

 

 

I'm currently digitising all the negatives I have and quite agree with that statement as it surprised me how many of the actual prints I'd lost or given away which I now have digital copies of again.

[Laurence Hogg]

Having seen the original Shackleton expedition negatives which were about 100 years old and in perfect condition, I'd suggest that a genuine silver negative is most likely to survive given fair storage (clean and dry) A genuine silver (bromide) print will last a long while, longer if selenium toned. Colour film doesn't archive Cibachrome is (or was) the most stable dye system supposedly good for years in sunlight.

 

Archiving to digital is an issue unless you are prepared to rewrite them every year which ultimately defeats the object.

 

This statement is rubbish, We have digitised archives which are now 15 years old and in perfectly readable, usable condition as from the day they were produced.

[Laurie Booth]

 

This statement is rubbish, We have digitised archives which are now 15 years old and in perfectly readable, usable condition as from the day they were produced.

What do you read them with?

[Laurence Hogg]

What do you read them with?

 

Any PC or laptop with a dvd drive. Images are all jpg, targa or bitmap, in the main jpg. With 4.7GB storage of which 4.4 is useable a dvd holds quite a lot of images.

We use Photoshop and JASC PSP7 &9 to view and print from.Canopus Imaginate is used as a digital rostrum platform for video use.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Laurence Hogg

[Laurie Booth]

 

Any PC or laptop with a dvd drive. Images are all jpg, targa or bitmap, in the main jpg. With 4.7GB storage of which 4.4 is useable a dvd holds quite a lot of images.

We use Photoshop and JASC PSP7 &9 to view and print from.Canopus Imaginate is used as a digital rostrum platform for video use.

But in 200 years time will PC's etc be available? The human eye will be. So it is a lot safer to store images on paper.

[Arthur Brown]

Archiving means storing safely for a long period, So far I haven't met anyone who hasn't lost something due to hard drive failure. What will the next 100 years hold as "progress" in the computer, will everything be back compatible?

 

Remember that Epson used to guarantee their inks as "archival" but in the small print specified six months.

 

Digital is good for storage and access BUT no-one knows what the quality of a DVD-R will be in 20 to 100 years, or whether we will still have playback machines for them then

[Laurence Hogg]

Archiving means storing safely for a long period, So far I haven't met anyone who hasn't lost something due to hard drive failure. What will the next 100 years hold as "progress" in the computer, will everything be back compatible?

 

Remember that Epson used to guarantee their inks as "archival" but in the small print specified six months.

 

Digital is good for storage and access BUT no-one knows what the quality of a DVD-R will be in 20 to 100 years, or whether we will still have playback machines for them then

 

The answer is simple, as the format used becomes mass replaced then you update to next format. with Digital storage no loss occurs.

[Laurence Hogg]

But in 200 years time will PC's etc be available? The human eye will be. So it is a lot safer to store images on paper.

 

Paper burns Laurie which is always a risk, and even if in years to come you want to use the image you will end up digitising it. Anyone who is serious about use of images from archive material will hold onto and conserve playback facilities. We have Betacam, Betamax, SVHS/VHS, Hi8 and DV playback facilities, also a super 8 projector alongside a 35mm one. In the sound field we have reel to reel and cassette players too. You never know what is going to turn up and in what format so you have to be prepared.

[Laurie Booth]

 

Paper burns Laurie which is always a risk, and even if in years to come you want to use the image you will end up digitising it. Anyone who is serious about use of images from archive material will hold onto and conserve playback facilities. We have Betacam, Betamax, SVHS/VHS, Hi8 and DV playback facilities, also a super 8 projector alongside a 35mm one. In the sound field we have reel to reel and cassette players too. You never know what is going to turn up and in what format so you have to be prepared.

Fire would destroy DVD's etc as well.

 

What no 9.5mm, Std 8mm, 70mm projectors, and the list goes on.............

But I see your point. Just update the existing photographs with the latest gizmo to view them.

[John Brightley]

Fire would destroy DVD's etc as well.

 

I've got my photos and other important information copied to a hard drive which is stored in a fire-safe box. They're not expensive.

[Laurie Booth]

I've got my photos and other important information copied to a hard drive which is stored in a fire-safe box. They're not expensive.

Let's hope the hard drive doesn't crash.