With all the discussion here usually focused on equipment the discussion of photo collections may be a bit out of place. However there are many facets of non equipment preservation that should be discussed (and solutions found).
As most are aware there are many SIG's focused on a very small part of railroad history be it an individual railroad such as the NKP or a family of railroads, or part of the railroad scene (such as stations or freight cars). I would dare to make the assumption that nearly all these organizations have some degree of photo or paper collections. Being with the ARHS I know we do. And using what I am familiar with, minor parts of the collection deal with "other" subjects. For example a photographer from Pennsylvania that took many photos of local railroads but also took a couple trips out west and down south resulting in nice pictures that you don't need.
Recently the ARHS received an envelope from someone in the Milwaukee Road Historical Association which contained a number of LV and CNJ photos and negatives. The ARHS is very appreciative of this and will send a few MILW photos from our collection out to them. This is a very good thing but as far as I know there is no central clearing entity (website) to coordinate who is interested in what with a good address to send such material. Right now each organization needs to search all over the internet to search if anyone might be interested in photos (for example BA&P electric boxcabs), send an email, hopefully get an answer and then proceed. This is a lot of extra work which will result in possibly great photos sitting in a collection where they are not seen or appreciated.

Thanks
Richard Jahn
ARHS
Suggestion or thoughts appreciated

It would be most excellent, in my opinion, if some kind of "clearing house" of connections to already-functioning archives were set up by the R&LHS and/or the NRHS. And as long as I dreaming, I want doubleheaded PRR T1s over Horse Shoe Curve.

One logistical problem is that the actual archivists are scattered willy-nilly. To give one example: I had the chance to possibly arrange transfer of some material to the Mountain State RR & Logging Historical Association (i.e. "the Cass guys"). Some of their stuff is in Cass, some in Charleston, WV, and the guy I ended up discussing the matter with is in Wisconsin......
Some groups are well-organized, and can tell you just what they have and whether it duplicates what they already have--for example, the PRRT&HS is pretty good in this regard. (They have a centralized archive in Lewistown, Pa.) Some places haven't a clue what they have. Most of us are in between: the stuff is coming in faster than our ability to catalog and sort it.

But today, we have an advantage. We can scan and digitally duplicate the stuff, and today we don't even need 100MB Zip Discs or CD-Rs to do it with. In a couple recent instances, I have seen entire intact photo collections passed to one archive, with a massive effort made to scan and duplicate photos relevant to other groups and hand them off copies for their files. The Ed Miller collection of spectacular street scenes of trolleys and streetcars in various regions was preserved by the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, but the Baltimore Streetcar Museum was handed digital files of the Miller photos relevant to Baltimore and Maryland traction lines (hundreds, if not thousands); the National Capitol Trolley Museum was supposed to get copies of the numerous DC photos, etc. (I believe monetary pledges to get the collection were involved.)

The Baltimore Streetcar Museum received the numerous photo and artifact collections of several photographers accumulated by the late Lee Rogers; almost instantly it was decreed that anything that could be located and deemed from the collection of the late D.C. historian Robert Truax (not just trolley stuff, but D.C. stuff as well) would be turned over to the National Capitol Trolley Museum. A year later, we're still trying to find it all, and one of the BSM members is still scanning some finds for the BSM before he hands them off. The D.C. Chapter NRHS volunteered to take all the stacks of bound Commercial & Financial Chronicles that were in the mess (more power to them). I've located a few PRR things that obviously came from the famous 1975 Penn Central "attic hoard" auction that would be better off in the hands of the RR Museum of Pa. or Lewistown, but I'm finding someone to underwrite scanning them and making duplicate copies at the copy center before the originals disappear into some deep shelving.

The interesting point to make here: Backup, backup, backup. If some catastrophe strikes Arden or Lewistown or NCTM, "backup" copies are at the BSM. It goes the other way, too.

I can desrcibe some of my roadblocks and this goes beyond just photos.

1. Museums lacking man hours to digitize huge collections.

The California State Railroad Museum has the largest collection of Whitcomb locomotive documents that I know of. They posses about 5,000 index cards that Whitcomb created as their filing system to document every locomotive that was built. They can search an individual unit but lack the man hours to digitize the entire collection. I need the entire collection to make a comprehensive survey of the production history. Until I can get money and time to travel and stay out there I'm stuck.

2. Digitized Photos lacking cross referencing.

Even when a museum does have a collection digitized, the file will have only one file name, even if the photo contains an image of some other interest. Example, I accidently discovered a digitized photo that was described as 760th Diesel Battalion in Lebanon. I usually google search a combination of "Whitcomb locomotive" when searching photos on the net but this photo escaped those searches because of the photo description. I had to google search 760th diesel battalion to find this. The owner of the photo had no idea what locomotives were in the photo. The photo also had captured German diesel locomotives in it which would probably never be found by a researcher of German equipment.

3. Movies / videos lacking cross referencing.

The problem with photos is even worse with movies / videos where dozens of items can be buried inside a single piece. A friend found a 30 minute video on youtube which was titled as an Eastern U.S. railroad. But buried deep inside was a 5-second clip of a military Whitcomb locomotive pulling a train in post-WW II Germany - totally unrelated to the subject title. If it weren't for my very alert friend I would never have known about it and it is the only video in existence that I know of showing Whitcombs in military service.

Steve

Any index, digital or otherwise, will often not capture everything that might be of 'interest' in the subject item. What's of interest is in the eye of the beholder.

For example, what would you put as in index on this photo (1st is whole photo, followed by a close-up of a curious vehicle)? It's currently cataloged as 'Manhattan & Queens Traction trolley No. 116, 1934'.




I wouldn't think a split-front window roadster would have been very common in 1934. But is it of any 'interest' in a collection of trolley photos?

Mr Mitchell - I totally agree with you. Regarding the tangent of indexing that is a different topic. Right now my original question was about material which is not on any index because it is in the corners of collections that is not the focus of the organization.

That is also the problem at the California State Railway museum. They don't have their Whitcomb material indexed, they say its too much. Just boxes and boxes of it.

Our local museum also doesn't have their material indexed. There are Whitcomb materials in their collection that they can't find because it's stored and waiting to be indexed and I've volunteered to help but they are too busy with other business.

Steve

I keep the Minnesota Streetcar Museum's photo collection and our policy is to donate non-Minnesota, non-streetcar photos to their home museums and historical societies. I've done this after acquiring several private collections. The results are quite positive. The receiving institutions are grateful (often thrilled), and in several instances the photos have been immediately published. And they no longer clog my files. Win, win.

If anyone is harboring Minnesota streetcar or interurban photos, I eagerly await.

Aaron Isaacs, archivist
Minnesota Streetcar Museum
aaronmona@aol.com