First Steps: Caring for Photographs Workshop (September 2019)
The results of SCA’s community archives survey showed there is a desire for training in basic conservation, cataloguing and digital preservation while creating a network of resources to support people working with community archives. We are creating a number of First Steps training events and on 4 September, we focused on the care of photographs and digital records.
Working with National Galleries of Scotland (NGS), we organised an enjoyable and informative day starting with best practice regarding the identification, handling and storage of photographs often found in community archives. James Berry, senior conservator at NGS, illustrated his talk with specifically selected objects from the NGS Photographic Collections, and NGS archivist Kirstie Meehan demonstrated how to catalogue and list your photographs.
This was followed by a presentation and a chance to do some short practical exercises with Sean Rippington, Digital Archives Officer/Copyright Officer, University of St Andrews, who talked about the threats to the long-term sustainability of digital community archives and identify practical steps that can be taken to counter them.
The presentations from the day are included below, and have lots of good tips and suggestions.
The workshop was even featured on That’s TV Scotland, and you can watch a brief overview of the day here.
The importance of cataloguing archive collections