Does anyone have any experiences they'd like to share with providing their groups' photos online?

I ran a search with the the words of this thread title, and got some interesting things. Like how the (Los Angeles) Metro Transportation and Archive has a lot of images on Flickr. And how the PhillyHistory.org site is superb.

I've been putting our photos on Facebook, however, I'm not sure that it's the best place for them. They're readily accessible and all, but difficult to sort, and impossible to search. Within my larger albums, if you try to move one photo to in front of another, more than what's required may move, making the effort pointless. If you don't have all conditions right, and sometimes when you do, they may not post properly to the News Feed.

I'm familiar with http://www.rrpicturearchives.net and http://www.railpictures.net, but I don't feel that those are the right places, either. Rrpicturearchives is difficult to search for anything that isn't a locomotive, and Railpictures doesn't have a wide enough variety of search fields.

We could probably go in the direction of our own server space, and purchase some software, but that can get expensive.

Photobucket? Picassa? Flickr? Other ideas?

Any suggestions?

Thank you,

James

The NPRHA & GNRHS have been using Microsoft Sharepoint for a few years.

http://www.gn-npjointarchive.org/default.aspx.

Sharepoint is a document management system and can also host databases.

It's not the perfect solution and it can be frustrating to maintain, but it does work.

At one time there was a "free" version, I don't know if there still is.

-Hudson

Damn, Sharepoint... that's hardcore. Good stuff.

The Conrail Historical Society is currently using Drupal 5, the Acidfree Albums module, cck and some other stuff to do theirs at http://thecrhs.org/ConrailPhotos. But these aren't really our collections, they're many (almost 30,000) user contributed photos.

I'm embarrassed by how old the Drupal version is, but because the Drupal project changed their handling of images, upgrading it will be a major project. MAJOR project. Gotta love Open Source...

We've also been thinking about CollectiveAccess and its web modules to expose collections stuff. But we haven't executed on that yet.

Sharepoint, Drupal 5, I was also given a recommendation for Access and HTML.

Thank you all, I'll have to look at these closer.

James

Here are some ways to do this.

I. You own and rack the server yourself.
- Buy a server, $3000
- Lease Internet connectivity to your site, or lease rack space at an ISP
- Wonder why on earth your electricity bill went up by $100/month
- Learn server maintenance.
- Buy software, $500
- Learn software
- Upload pictures
- Push to web
- Too complicated for average volunteer, so one guy does it all.
- Volunteer that knows all this stuff quits.
- His replacement goes "WTH?" and gets rid of most of it and starts over.

2. You lease fractional ownership of a server already in a rack.
- Lease a server, $99/mo.
- Buy software, $500
- Learn server maintenance
- Learn software
- Upload pictures
- Push to web
- Too complicated for average volunteer, so one guy does it all.
- Volunteer that knows all this stuff quits.
- His replacement goes "WTH?" and gets rid of most of it and starts over.

3. You use an online web service.
- Sign up for an account ($25/year)
- Upload pictures
- Many volunteers submit because it's easy
- Volunteer quits.
- You give passwords to a different volunteer.

So, um, your call...

I see the opportunity to avoid a great deal of complexity and expense thanks to the modern web apps. I know a lot of organizations have already committed the upfront work to get set up in their own apps, they may not realize the sheer amount of effort they have already spent are partially mooted by modern solutions. Yes, a custom approach gives you increments more versatility. But balance that against cost and maintainability. For instance IRM has a fairly custom web setup where both department and members can publish photos and blog. They also have a literal team of web guys who do that. If you've got 1 guy, do not let him build a complex system that will force you to hire someone to maintain it when he quits.

Also beware the fallacy of sunk costs. http://www.fpanet.org/ToolsResources/Ar ... SunkCosts/

Let's be straightforward here.

When you see these massive online databases of photography, they're typically set up by archives with massive resources at hand, PLUS a diversity of subject matter. The Library of Congress. The [State} Historical Society/Museum. The big-city library. The state university system. And they have enough subject matter to interest lots of clients: Magazines. Book publishers. Authors. Genealogists. All willing or able to pay for results.

Almost none of us have the resources or endowment, or the labor, to set up and operate such a resource. And even if we did, the return on investment is probably not there. Go ask the Denver Public Library how much money they make from the digitized portion of their Otto Perry archive.

Unless you have some wealthy benefactor and an eager and intelligent scanning and computer crew, your more intelligent strategy should be cataloging and identifying what you have. That's fairly simple and straightforward database work.

That's fair, regarding the fancy 'private' website collections being more difficult to manage than they're worth.

Do you guys have experience with the free photo websites?

James

But to do any database work, you still need a database. And where are you going to put that?

So you're still back to the type of options I outlined above; though with lighter requirements for server, software and internet connection. Also backups. Gotta do those. Less with the cloud.

So what are we to do with the pictures? Leave them in boxes in the basement accessible only to the Gnomes of the archives staff?

The GNRHS & NPRHA have members all over the planet and two archive sites. A web presence is about the only way to support our membership.

-Hudson

Here's an example of one thing you can do:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Baltimor ... 5824370567

This does a couple things:
It makes people aware of what kind of things we have in the collections (a joint NRHS Chapter and Balto. Streetcar Museum collection), and promotes their use and availability.
It gets people who may only have a casual interest in such subjects more interested, and lets the younger/newer folks know that someone else shares their interests.
Occasionally it's "crowdsourcing" for information about unidentified photos/subjects.
And it promotes the Chapter and BSM, and railfanning in general.

If you are fortunate enough to have knowledgeable retirees, volunteers, interns, or whatever willing and able to scan and label the photos in question, then get scanning, sorting, and/or labeling. You have to be in a position to be able to answer when someone comes up and asks (as real-life requests in the past couple weeks) "Do you have any photos of LOCAL B&O trains going into or out of Washington Union Terminal in 1955-58?" or "Do you have a photo of that DT&I business car the Maryland Midland had, and any idea where it went?" (yeah, the Aberdeen, Carolina & Western), or "Any photos of commuter trains at Parkton, Maryland?" or "any photos of that steam loco that was at a quarry in Beltsville for years?" or "any shots of streetcars on Park Heights Avenue?" We feel guilty charging, but there's a LOT of money going into photo and negative sleeves, rebuilding library card catalog cases into slide drawer trays, etc.

We have one retiree who now has about (by his rough guess) 75,000 slides backlogged in his place, having taken in the collections of two now-deceased past officers of the Chapter and the collection of one of the most prolific loco and "critter" shooters in the nation. He's drafted two reasonably knowledgeable retirees to simply scan slides while Internet-surfing and leave the filing/captioning to us (portable hard drives and "thumb drives" come in handy). The first guy makes the grim joke of "Right now I'm so backlogged I'm not allowed to die for at least thirty years...."

At RMEO, we're faced with the same problem but we really don't have enough trained gnomes. Thankfully, we have an excellent Curator, Anne Shropshire, who is gradually whipping the collections into better shape.

Here are the things we're doing to get part of the collection out there in a usable, but lower resolution form, still leaving the possibility of earning user fees for high res scans or prints:

1. The Smiths Falls Railway History Project is a major project, funded to the tune of $78,000 by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, & Universities, the Ontario Ministry of Culture, Tourism, & Sport, The Town of Smiths Falls, Upper Canada District School Board, Canadian Pacific, TV Cogeco, and created with the assistance of hundreds of student and adult volunteers from the community.

The "Project" created a new web site including portions of interviews with retired railroaders, social history relating the local railways to the town's growth, and photo galleries highlighting part of our collection. The "Project" also created new permanent museum displays, helped to better document our collections, and created travelling displays.

Although the funded portion of the project has concluded, it is intended that it will continue to grow, and form the basis of a large online presence.

2. Our Fotki Albums concentrate mainly on our museum's growth and equipment, but have a number of photos from our collections where they help tell a story:

http://public.fotki.com/elliottd/sfrmeo/

3. Our FaceBook page regularly has archival photos posted, in an effort to stir up discussion and interest:

https://www.facebook.com/rmeo.smithsfalls

4. Our web site occasionally has items from our collection posted. It isn't used to the greatest extent possible, but hopefully this will grow over time:

http://rmeo.org/

An important, but as-yet unfulfilled goal is to get a huge number of usable photos and scans of drawings and maps of low but usable resolution (but watermarked) on the web, with instructions to the viewer on how to order high res scans or prints. Of course, this can only be done where we have clear copyright, and purchasers would need to abide by a "terms of use" agreement.

Possibly, much of that work will be made possible by future grants.

Steve Hunter

I've seen the Baltimore Chapter NRHS Facebook Page; I've enjoyed. Even looking at it again now, there are all kinds of good photos on there. The only thing against it, is that all their photos are on their 'Timeline', which amounts to them being in one album. If you want to see something in particular, you have to sift through all ~540 photos.

What I've experienced with our Page, is that when I post something new into a particular album, then people are more likely to sift through that album, adding new comments and whatever else.

But, that's connected to the original problem. We have an album of a steam locomotive, a few photos each of being loaded, on the flatcar, and being unloaded. I can tell the difference between the loading and unloading photos, but it may not be obvious to the average viewer. I'm unable to sort those photos into the proper order. I'm sure that eventually, Facebook will have a sorting routine put in.

And like what was said, the crowd sourcing aspect is great. As volunteer groups go, there are always (previous and current) members who don't want to directly interact with each other, yet, they've so far been pleased to go on and comment, adding to the information.

I also liked the Fotki album for the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario. That's what I've been thinking of.

I think I'll look more into Photobucket or possibly Pbase. It'd be nice to not have the archive cluttered with advertising.

Thank you all for your help.

James

Related to the above post, here's a problem that comes up with cataloging.

I deliberately made the Facebook page non-user-friendly. I really want it to be ethereal. Eventually, shots go away, to be replaced by more discoveries.

Cataloging? Let's take one shot at random. Let's see how many places I could file it.

B&O. Baltimore. 2-8-0. Camden Station. Maryland. 1910. 545. B&O Museum. Steam. Preserved. Broadside. B&W.

I could do just about as much breakdown for just about any photo on that page. And when you catalog for a database, you HAVE to.

If you want an example of how extreme this can get, look at the category options here: http://bridgehunter.com/

For casual posting of photos, you might also consider Pinterest. You can use hashtags in the caption, which gives some degree of searchability over Facebook. When you 'pin' something in Pinterest you have the option of cross posting it to a number of other social media sites, including Twitter and Facebook.

I recently created a Pinterest page for TMNY: http://pinterest.com/trolleymuseumny/

The group I'm involved with decided to use PastPerfect with the PastPerfect Online module. It's relatively inexpensive (for what it does and its scalability), powerful, supports a decentralized network of users, and is a widely deployed back-end in the museum world, giving us a good chance that some existing and future volunteers may have some experience with it.

http://www.museumsoftware.com/pponline.shtml

We haven't deployed it yet so I can't offer a sample. But this is what all the research and discussions on producing an online archive have been narrowed down to.