Library and Information Science Commons^™

Written In Light: Creating Access To Photographic Collections, Suellyn Lathrop, Nancy Richey

The Southeastern Librarian

The value in photographs is noted "in our culture because they are inexpensive, easy to acquire, and serve as accurate, detailed records of our environment and activities" (Schmidle, 1996). But, many challenges are presented to the archivist and librarian by the discovered or donated collection of photographs because in their abundance and variety, they can surpass all other forms of information housed in institutions. For a university archives, holdings include photographs culled from manuscript collections, from individual photographers and alumni, but the majority come from in-house production. For the librarian, the provenance of the photographs will be as varied as …