The Champaign County Historical Archives has over one million photographs of local people and locations, dating from the mid-19th century to the present. Here is great example from our collection.

Cool turn-of-the-20th-century photograph that we know nothing about because no one recorded any metadata for it.
Know what would make this photograph better? Metadata!

Now the person who owned this photograph probably knew the names of these lovely children, but a hundred years on we have no identifying information.

Capturing metadata for photographs used to be as simple as writing names, dates, and the location on the back of the photograph (and even then very few people took the time) now in the digital age it is a bit more complicated.

Never fear! The staff of the Archives is here to help you with your personal digital photograph collection.

The Library of Congress’ National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program has identified four steps for digital description and preservation: Identify, Decide, Organize, and Make Copies.

  1. Identify. Take an inventory of where your photographs are currently housed. Are they still on your camera or phone? On your laptop? Perhaps they are stored on a photo-sharing or social media website (Flickr, Facebook, Shutterfly, Picasa, etc.).
  2. Decide. Which photographs are the most important? A smaller collection of curated photographs is easier to manage and preserve than a sprawling mish mash of everything. Don’t be afraid to delete pictures that are duplicates, possess only slight variations, or are not of enduring value.       
  3. Organize. The most time-consuming but essential part of the process. Start by giving each photo a descriptive file name (e.g. “schmuel_wedding.jpg” or “hawaii-sunset.jpg). Bonus points for adding a date. “Year-month-day” is one way to do it. So if I took a photo in Hawaii on June 23, 2016, I might name it “20160623_hawaii.jpg.” Use a photo editing or organization software (e.g. iPhoto, Picasa, Adobe, etc.) to tag or include descriptive information to remind you of the “who, what, and where” in the photo. Next, create a structure for your picture storage environment. You can organize your photos by year, location, person, or any other structure that makes sense to you.
  4. Make copies. Lots of copies keeps stuff safe. During the “identify” process you probably found pictures stored in a bunch of different places. This is good! As long as you have a system for keeping track of them. Now, how many copies do you need? Think 3-2-1.

3 – Keep 3 copies of any important file: 1 primary and 2 backups.
2 – Keep the files on 2 different media types (think CDs, USB flash drive, external hard drive, or cloud storage) to protect against different types of hazards.
1 – Store 1 copy offsite (e.g., outside your home)

That’s it. Four easy steps to keep your digital photographs organized and accessible. You will also want to check on your files once a year to make sure that you can open and read them and you will want to migrate them to newer hardware and/or software as needed.

Easy peasy, right. And of course you can always go old school and have a good quality print made. Just make sure to write the names, date, and location on the back.

Any questions? Come visit us in the Archives we can help.    

- Sherrie, Archives Librarian