[Ellen Paul]

Several years ago our historical society had a history harvest in which we requested donors to bring items to be photographed along with their concomitant stories and chain of ownership. I must confess that the photo files have languished until now when I would like to catalog them. We use PastPerfect for our object, photo, archival and library collections, but I’m unsure how I would use it for a virtual collection. Has anyone done this? What would be your recommendations?
Thank you

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[Quinn Morgan Ferris]

Hi Ellen,

Thank you for your question–its a good one. I don’t have any personal experience with Past Perfect and Virtual collections, but I will pass on your query to a few colleagues and be back in touch again soon.

Best,
Quinn Ferris

[Lissa]

Hi Ellen,

Did you get deeds of title signed for each photo scan, or some kind of documentation clarifying what rights the original owners were transferring to your historical society? This can be sticky regarding what you are legally allowed to do with the scans because of copyright and reproduction issues, but also because the heirs of the scan donors may still have the right to say you can’t continue using the photos or to publish them. Do you also have good documentation of the content of each photo? For these reasons, I usually advise those considering this not to do large scale community scanning sessions. It’s not impossible, though, and I hope some who have done it successfully also weigh in.

If you have these things resolved, the Past Perfect lexicon is your solution for cataloging. Make sure you have the newest version of the lexicon installed (can get it from their website) so it includes new digital media terms. You’d largely catalog the scans as you would a normal photo, but then navigate through the lexicon terms in PastPerfect until you find the one that references something like “photo, scan”. This is different from “photo, digital” or “duplicate” or “copy”.

Also, complete the metadata fields for each image so that future people will know what resolution it was scanned at and the equipment used to create it. There is encoding from individual equipment used that can affect reproducing and is legacy information that will be important to future people managing your collection.

Be sure to carefully fill out all boxes in the legal section and source section, being very clear what documented rights you have to use the photo. If it was only shared for research purposes and you don’t have a clearly written and signed right to reproduce it or to transfer the right of production to someone else (like an author to use for a book), then use the “restricted” feature when accessing that image. This way, anyone who looks at it in the database will be able to easily tell whether they are allowed to reproduce it.

Lissa

[Ellen Paul]

Thank you, Lissa. Yes, we did get deeds for each of the scans or photographs. Your recommendations should get us going with cataloging this collection.
Ellen Paul

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