We regret to announce that after many years of sharing best practice and celebrating photo collections and photo archives across the UK, the Photographic Collections Network has now closed. We would like to thank everyone who has supported us over the years
The Photographic Collections Network (PCN) worked significantly in the sector from 2016-2024 with many amazing people and photographic collections, supported by the PCN Steering Group and a wider network. We advised on collections placement, copyright, orphaned works, collections care, digitisation, preservation and much more. We are proud ofwhat we achived in this time, via an extensive events programme of talks, workshops, advice sessions and collection visits that engaged people across the sector.
While this website is now archived, you can continue to access some of the help and advice we shared. Below you will find links which we hope are helpful.
Past Blogs, News, Events, Collections can all be found via the menu at the top of this page.
Resources page, for tool kits, advice and some videos recordings of past events:
https://www.photocollections.org.uk/resources
Below are advice and links about placement of collections, and scroll futher down for more info about caring for a collection.
Placement of Photo Collections
What can you do if you have a collection that you cannot care for? Where can you place it?
The first place to start is usually your Local Studies Library, most cities and counties in the UK have a Local Studies Library where they collect and store documents and information such as maps, paper records, photographs etc. relating to the local people and area. You can contact your local libraries service to find out more details. You can also use The National Archives ‘Find an Archive Tool’ to help you locate an archive, you can search by area or topic.
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/discovery-help/find-an-archive/
You can also reach out to local museums, most cities and counties have a range of museums, sometimes focusing on the regional area and others on a theme or topic. Again your local council will be able to help you find your nearest museum.
What to do with themeatic collections?
Your photographic collection may be on a particular theme or topic, for example, aerial photography, or photos taken in a certain country. There are lots of ‘Special Collections’ in universities and institutions across the UK and internationally. Again you can use the Find an Archive tool to help you locate a collection on this topic, also look British Photographic History the website run by Dr Michael Pritchard has great advice and you can post a question in the friendly and knowledgeable forum https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/
Caring for collections
How do you care for photographic collections?
The links below have some great advice on handling, storage, management and other related topics.
The National Archives: Top Tips for Caring for Photographs
https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/top-tips-for-caring-for-photographs/
The National Archives: Care and Handling of Photographs
https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/archivesconservation_photo.pdf
Icon Institute of Conservation: Multiple pdf guides to caring for objects including photos, work on paper etc. https://www.icon.org.uk/resources/caring-for-your-collection/caring-for-your-treasures.html
National Science and Media Museum: Beginners guide to photographic conservation
https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/a-beginners-guide-to-photographic-conservation/
Library of Congress: Photography Preservation advice
https://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/photo.html
Historic and alternative processes, and identification
Before you make decisions on caring for your photographs you may need to understand more about the material nature of the photographs, a good place to start might be the V&A list of alternative processes. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/photographic-processes
The most recommended book for identifying prints on paper is The Care and Identification of 19th Century Photographic Prints by James Reilly. This contains a useful fold-out wallchart too. Unfortunately, it's out of print but used copies are available.
The V&A also published A Guide to Early Photographic Processes. It contains a key (flowchart) explaining how to identify almost every type of negative or positive analogue photograph. Sadly also out of print.
There's a long and fairly recent bibliography at The Getty Conservation Institute.
Digital Storage
Collections Management Software: Advice from the Collections Trust https://collectionstrust.org.uk/software/
Also see Digital Archiving, the Seven Pillars of Meta Data https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/digital-archiving-seven-pillars-metadata/
Please note: This page will not be updated