The picture press in archives: facing the institutional challenges of newspaper photo collections

Over the last few decades newspaper companies have either sold or donated large-scale photographic press archives to collecting institutions of all kinds. This paper explores the major challenges faced by museums, archives and libraries acquiring large scale press archives through two case studies carried out in 2018. The Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections at York University acquired the photo collection of the Toronto Telegram in 1974 and 1987, and the Archives of Ontario acquired the Globe and Mail photo collection in 2016. Each institution has been forced to address the logistical issues of the physical and intellectual organization of these enormous collections while also dealing with the preservation problems specific to photographic archives. This paper looks at relevant literature, presents findings of my site visits as well as interviews with collections managers at the two institutions.

The picture press in archives: facing the institutional challenges of newspaper photo collections

Over the last few decades newspaper companies have either sold or donated large-scale photographic press archives to collecting institutions of all kinds. This paper explores the major challenges faced by museums, archives and libraries acquiring large scale press archives through two case studies carried out in 2018. The Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections at York University acquired the photo collection of the Toronto Telegram in 1974 and 1987, and the Archives of Ontario acquired the Globe and Mail photo collection in 2016. Each institution has been forced to address the logistical issues of the physical and intellectual organization of these enormous collections while also dealing with the preservation problems specific to photographic archives. This paper looks at relevant literature, presents findings of my site visits as well as interviews with collections managers at the two institutions.

Geo-Landmark Recognition and Detection

The widespread use of smartphones and mobile data in the present-day society has exponentially led to the interaction with the physical world. The increase in the amount of image data in web and mobile applications makes image search slow and inaccurate. Landmark recognition, an image retrieval task, faces its challenges due to the uncommon structure it possesses, such as, buildings, cathedrals, castles or museums. These are shot from various angles which are often different from each other, for instance, the exterior and interior of a landmark. This paper makes use of a Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) based efficient recognition system that serves in navigation, to organize photo collections, identify fake reports and unlabeled landmarks from historical data. It identifies landmarks correctly from a variety of images taken at different viewpoints as well as distances. An appropriate CNN architecture helps to provide the best solution for the currently selected dataset.

“Other Turkestan” by Senator Konstantin Palen and engineer Nikolay Shchapov

This article is devoted to two practically unknown photo collections that visualize Turkestan at the beginning of the twentieth century. The first, stored in the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA) and consisting of 4 photo albums, was collected during the Senate audit of the Turkestan Territory under the leadership of Count K. K. Palen in 1908—1909. The second collection of photographs, shot in 1911—1913 in Turkestan, is part of a large and diverse personal photo collection of hydrologist engineer N. M. Shchapov, stored in the Central State Archive of Moscow, the Center for the Storage of Electronic and Audiovisual Documents (TsGAM TsKHEAVD). Photocollections of the Senate audit (under the leadership of K. K. Palen) and hydro engineer N. M. Schapov, in our opinion, can be considered a visualization of modernization in Turkestan and a manifestation at the general imperial level of the appearance of another, industrial, Turkestan.

The MAE RAS Khiwan Collections of A. N. Samoilovich

The expedition of academician Alexander Nikolaevich Samoylovich (1880—1938) to the Khanate of Khiwa in 1908 have been one of the most significant trips of Peter the Great's Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera). A. N. Samoylovich's activity on gathering ethnographic material has enriched the MAE item and photo collections related to the life of Khiwan population, the Uzbeks and the Turkmen. Unfortunately, little is known about the expedition itself, its organisation, its route, and the circumstances under which the field materials were collected. The Museum collections, together with the published works of the academician, helped reveal another facet of his talent — as ethnographer and collector. A. N. Samoylovich's Museum collections represent original material, which will allow to reconstruct the cultural situation in the Khanate of Khiwa of the beginning of the 20th century.

Building Tools for Community-Driven Photo Collections

Local history collections are only as good as how well they represent their community, so make sure the community is easily able to contribute to your collection. This LIBchat will discuss an implemented tool and workflow for collecting both digital and analog photographs for accession into local history collections. You will learn about submission agreements, workflows for ingest, tools to facilitate the transfer, metadata considerations, and marketing strategies to actually get your community excited and involved to contribute to the preservation of their local history.