Photographic Print Backlog Project
To provide better organization of one of the museum's photograph collections, allowing for greater public access to the community?s historic resources.
$4,500,000 the first year and $6,500,000 the second year are for history programs and projects operated or conducted by or through local, county, regional, or other historical or cultural organizations or for activities to preserve significant historic and cultural resources. Funds are to be distributed through a competitive grant process. The Minnesota Historical Society must administer these funds using established grant mechanisms, with assistance from the advisory committee created under Laws 2009, chapter 172, article 4, section 2, subdivision 4, paragraph (b), item (ii).
Available upon request. grants@mnhs.org
In our application we had one short-term expected impact:
1. Elimination of a large backlog of unsorted photographic prints.
This was achieved during the course of the project.
Two intermediate-term expected impacts:
1. Incorporation of unsorted photographic prints within preexisting organizational system. 2. Determined digitizing priorities for images in the collection.
All identified print photos that fit within our organizational system have now been filed. While the Curator was able to spend less time on determining digitizing priorities than he had hoped, approximately 2,500 images have already been designated for digitization (see attached). This list will grow considerably by the time the digitization project begins.
One long-term impact:
1. Improved organization and preservation for a collection that is critical to our mission.
We have quite a ways to go, but we made significant progress on this goal during the project, and we are now much better prepared to go ahead with this work.
Available upon request, grants@mnhs.org