Digital photos require changes in archiving

Archiving pictures used to be easy for schools, newspapers and other institutions: Someone would put the glossy photo in a file or drawer. It was easy to access, readily available and permanent enough to last for generations.

That's changing with the advent of digital photography. Pictures are stored in cameras and sent by e-mails, so there is often no three-dimensional object to hold and file.

The problem may not affect people today, but it will frustrate those in the future who go looking for records of the past and find nothing -- unless institutions take steps to preserve those digital images.

Archiving

Amy Radick, public relations coordinator for St. Mary's Hospital in Amsterdam, said that her office saves all digital photos on discs that can be accessed later.

She sometimes makes a more permanent copy of a digital photo if it is needed or requested, by simply making a paper copy of the picture and filing that.

"The question [of archiving digital photos] is a really good one, though," she said, adding that it got her thinking about ways in which to permanently preserve photos for future reference.

On CDs

Chloe Van Aken, communications director for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas in Albany, frequently takes photos of people and events.

"We use a digital camera for most of our work, and we archive all the photos on CDs," she said. She uses programs such as CD-R by Imation. "The digitals work very well for use on our website," but she also tries to take a permanent picture in addition to using a digital camera.

"We have found that using the CD for storage of the digital photos is a relatively inexpensive way to preserve them and so far, the process works well for us," she explained. "I'm relying on the technicians who design these programs; if the technology changes, I trust that they will know enough about it all to teach the rest of us what to do."

Three savings

At Siena College in Loudonville, Sergio Sericolo, assistant director of communications and creative design, has a well defined system of saving photographs.

"We take both digital photos and regular prints. We save them in three different ways," he said.

First, he tries to back up each digital photo with an additional image taken by a regular camera. Sometimes, however, taking two shots is not possible. In that case, the staff prints out the digital photos and files them.

"Then we also save the digital photo to a CD and also to a separate drive on the computer," he said. "That way, it's been saved in two separate forms: on disc and in a permanent computer file.

He added that the college archivist uses some of the photos his department takes, and they are copied and filed there as well.

(02-20-03) [[In-content Ad]]