Advice For An Idle Thought

For some reason, I was thinking of all the photograph albums now residing in a corner of my closet. As many of you know, I had to clear out my parents' townhouse this year, and my mother was the family historian documenting all our events and exploits in photo albums. I expect that this will be my retirement project, but what would you do with all the photo albums which take up quite a bit of space? Scan them and store digitally? But then, what about names, dates and notations? And even if I do that, I can't see myself actually chucking the photos... Any advice -- what would you do, or even, what have some of you done with all those photos one eventually winds up with?

 

If you did scan them and store digitally, you should be able to get some sort of software that could also record the names, dates, and notations along with the images.

Sounds like that would take a long while, but in the long run would most likely be worth it. But also keeping them... that seems to pose even more of an issue if they take up a lot of space that you don't have.

 

And if the notations are written on the reverse of the photos you can scan them in too, naming the front and back images in such a way as to get them stored close together in your picture file.

 

Go ahead and scan them if you have the time and/or money, but I would then keep them.
Scanned photos are so impersonal.

 

Preservation - Identification - Memorialization

1) Unless the album pages have information on them, take the photos out of the albums and store in acid free glassine envelopes in sealed plastic boxes (but I live in florida where humidity is paper's mortal enemy - may not need plastic where you are). This should reduce the space they take up. While doing this scan them.

2) go through them quickly and see if there are any that are not identified. If there is anyone still around who might be able to id them, send them a copy of the scan and ask. They may not be around by the time you retire.

3) put it all up til you want a project - then have fun with them.

 

Well, you see, although we remember very well the non-digital world, my kids and grandkids are definitely digital people, so I think that they would appreciate digital albums for posterity and genealogical purposes.

 

Now, there's an idea I wouldn't have thought of! Thanks!

 

Yep, I can't chuck 'em. I gots the clutter gene!

 

Humidity is not as much of a problem here in the PNW as in Fla., but I like the idea of tossing the albums and keeping the photos. And oh, there's lots where I don't know all the people, but usually there's one of my family members in them.

 

If you have the time and inclination, you could create a separate "decorated" album for each family member. Scrapbooking has been a very popular craft for the last ten years or so, and there are supplies available for creating really interesting and beautiful keepsakes. The Michael's craft supply store in my area has a great selection of albums, album pages, and various things you can attach to the pages.

Here are some examples...
http://www.scrapbook.com/gallery/

Digital photoframes are cool, too, with rotating images.

I just found this site and think their products look intriguing...
http://www.mypublisher.com/

As for what to do with all the originals, I also have the dilemma of what to do with my family's photos. I don't have anyone to pass them onto who'd want them and hate the idea of someone just tossing them someday.

 

I'm resisting the scrap booking idea simply because I don't get around to more pressing projects as it is, LOL! I like the collage, Davey, but I'll leave that up to my more creative daughter as I know that there are duplicates around. Lots of great ideas, here, folks!

 

Pat - If you have no family members to pass them on to, think of local genealogical and historical societies, either where you are or where your family is from. As much as possible identify dates for them. Just think of what we do here - trying to date objects and paintings and such. Having a photo that says "mom & dad honeymoon 1948" on a photo of an old inn in France could help someone in the future tell when the building was remodeled, or even torn down (perhaps silencing the local troll who insists "the germans blew that up in WWII") Photos of events help us date images by types of clothing, etc.

Names of people are important - perhaps someone will get interested in your family in a generation or two - but other details make photos useful for lots of reasons. And if the historical society is so swamped or short-sighted as to pitch them - well - you won't know about it.

 

Hi,
Storing them in boxes is fine. I hate digital images for posterity since God knows what happens when they change the format since recouping them could be lost. I love old photos they will last and can be instantly seen. No family to leave them to try the historical socities. Perhaps a distant cousin will find them and want to do studies on them.
greg

 

Hi Elarnia,
Sorry I did not see your post before I posted. Great minds etc
greg

 

As Elarnia said above "Names of people are important - perhaps someone will get interested in your family in a generation or two."

I have a small snapshot photo of a group of Sunday-best dressed up adults standing on the back steps of Grandma and Grandpa's house. The only notation on the back of the photo is "Poppa's family," but no list of their names.

This past month while looking through a particular cemetery's records, I found that my paternal grandfather had a younger sister named "Clara Belle."

Now I know why, when I was a small child, I overheard my paternal grandmother talking about "Clarabell" calling that week (back when "Howdy Doody" was first on television).

 

Greg is right about the format issue. People act like creating sending and storing information digitally is just a convenience. It certainly is that, but it also means that, for the first time in history, HOW we access data has changed.

From clay tablets and hieroglyphics to photocopies and even in a pinch microfiche, if you knew the language all you needed to read something was your eyes. And you didn't even need to read to access images - thus all the moral lessons in church art.

Now we have data and images being created that will never exist outside of machines. To access them you need the right machine and program. Even leaving aside the capacity for misuse of this by authority, just think about how much will be lost by each generation just because not all records will be reformatted as systems change. Finding a centuries old journal has rewritten history on several occasions. Finding a 300 year old 5 1/4 inch floppy disc? Not so much. (Or even a 30 year old one - I've got some - no idea what's on them.)

Most governments are addressing this in part by requiring the use of standard open formats like tif or pdf (only partially open), and requiring retention schedules to include reformatting, but a lot of businesses and organizations use proprietary software and formats. Many already have legacy databases no-one is maintaining that will be dumped as soon as legal deadlines have passed.

Think about this the next time your business or club appoints a new records manager, or you buy a new computer and decide to try out a new, easy, all encompassing program for it.

Sorry - this is my soapbox issue - I am really afraid that we will realize the potential for loss of information because of the wholesale destruction of records in favor of selective digitization too late to do anything about it.

Cheers

 

Good thoughts, Elarnia. I will find a way to keep the photos, even if the albums will go.

 

Kentworld, gotcha on not having time to do albums. I know exactly what you mean!

Thanks for the suggestions to donate photos to historical associations... I like that idea. For most of the photos of my immediate family, dating them and adding names and locations should be fairly easy.

It won't be so easy with photos of older generations, unfortunately. My parents and their siblings are all gone, and I didn't see these photos until I went through my mother's items. I so wish she'd shown them to me and told me about the people and places in them.

 

Not very likely. You can still recoup from floppy disc, how much older do you want. It may not be easy to recoup but it can be done, it is done from floppy everyday.

1. Access what and why you want these photos.

a.) do you want the image.
b.) do you want the object.

If you want the image, because you want to keep a record of your family, you need to scan the images at a very high resolution, (16,000-24,000) at that rate of resolution you will be preserving the information (actual image) in more detail than the original photograph. Make the images in a non loss format (png) and and store them on some sort of memory storage device (USB Memory Stick). Y

You can re-title the .png files, and organize them into folders to make them easier to locate in the device and record any information you want on an .rtf file (WordPad) which you also burn onto the storage device. (if you scan the backs of photos to record any written messages, names, etc, you can do that at a lower resolution since you won't be printing them out)

You can delete the original png files from your puter to free up memory.

You will then be able to manipulate or print the photos from these scans at any time.

If you want to preserve the image, you can keep them in non-acid albums, put them in non-acid protectors, or glassine, and store them in non-acid shoe boxes AND watch them slowly fade, instead of quickly fade as if you nailed them to a lamppost or framed them on the wall.

If you are interested in the object. You need to store them in non-acid material and using museum methods. Do not frame or display them for long periods of time.

The beauty of digital recovery, is like having a $100,000,000 necklace that sits in a bank vault while you wear the replica to the opera. You can properly store the original, yet make the best possible copy from digital and not worry if it fades, because you can always make a new one.