Message-ID: <01df01c90d41$79597170$690fa8c0@B110> From: "Tom Duescher" <tduescher@subnet-tech.com> Subject: Re: Re:Tom- Picasa Cataloging Photos Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 16:18:36 -0500
Sara,
The photo collection in Kaukauna is 2500 Photos that were scanned and
uploaded to Picasa. Another collection for Kewaunee County has 18,000
Thumbnails in the collection.
If you go to Picasa on the web it steps you through setting up a new
account. and you can have a web presence for your historical photos in
under 30 minutes.
A version of Picasa is downloaded and installed on a PC (Free download)
This allows the uploading of any scanned images to Picasa that is on
line - Standard JPEG images and many other format images are allowed.
The "Owner" of the account has control over setting the image collection
as Public or Private and many other settings.
When the images are uploaded (a maximum of 500 Images in each photo
album. The free limit is 5 GB or about 5,000 images. From what I have
seen not many community or County societies have more than this. More
photos can be stored for a small fee for the additional storage
(Unlimited number of photos).
Captioning and tagging is performed by the Owner(s) of the account and
allows multiple people to be captioning at the same time from home if
desired. Since the entire caption is entered into the search engine no
specific format is required for formatting. We chose to use our
internal Photo ID, Subject if known, Date if known, source if known,.
Additional information can be added.
Searching for any word in the caption can be performed in the
collection. For example the search word "School" will include every
photo that had the word "School" somewhere in the caption.
Subject categories can be created and are called tags. These tags are
also searched with the search engine.
Since the owner sets a password for the collection only people holding
the password can add captions. However anyone can send a note back to
the owner with additional information that they may know about a
specific image. We use this to add caption information and identify
photos. We have had people assist in adding captions from across the
nation.
The collections can be set for private if preferred allowing the owner
to send a specific link of a collection to a group of people (A society
membership as an example) They would be able to view the collection but
the collection would not be viewable by the general public.
These features are all standard within Picasa, we just utilize them to
fit the need of Historical societies where they want to be able to share
the collection and keep the collection "Alive" with additional
information being added by the public.
Because the collection is stored on the Web - it provides another safety
of the images being backed up away from the historical society or the
computer that the images are being stored on.
We accept donated photos and add the source of each photo to the
caption- giving credit where it is due. Some photos have been donated
"Years ago" and no credits are given.
We also have used this to store cemetery headstone photos and have the
surname in the caption. This allows people to search for a surname and
browse the headstones of interest in a "Vitual cemetery".
The searching engine is very fast and finds the images based on the
keywords or tags on each photo.
Photos can also be printed to create a hardcopy photo album for people
to browse.
Like you we search for photos when doing newsletters to find an image
appropriate to the newsletter topic.
Hopefully this helps. We had tried other "Professional" programs that
are designed for Museums, etc that are very pricey with annual software
maintenance costs and was found to be difficult to learn for infrequent
volunteers. This solution is Fast, Easy to learn and use and Free and
gives web access and a great backup solution as well.
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: Sara Steele
To: localhistory@listserve.uwec.edu
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 3:40 PM
Subject: Re:Tom- piccas Cataloging Photos
Hi Tom
Thank you for your recent posting.
Please take time to tell us more about Picasa and how you use it at
Kaukauna. Tell us more about 1) the size of your photo collection 2) how
frequently you get photos from it, 3) the uses made of those photos and
4) the extent you view the photos as being heavily used by your society
members as they combine them with text or real objects in exhibits. It
is one thinig to make a list of avialble photos available as an
inventory or to the general public. It is another to have a way fo
quickly finding specific photos for in your socieys's projects. In some
cases apparently the purpose is primarily that of letting the public
know what is in your collectioni.(ase WHS seems to be doing)
I was interested in the subject categories that appeared on the web
page you referred us to and wondered if you folks set them up or if you
had taken them from some predesigned source like the Library of
Congress.
I was glad to hear of Picasa and think it may be very helpful if we
decide to put a collection of individual photos up on the web for public
accessiblity Perhaps I did not go far enough and find more, but the
email address you gave seemed to show only a finished product with out
indicating how the information is inputted or how the categories were
derived.
Purposes, uses, and way you secure photos
As in most systems, the kind of system that is most useful depends
very much on 1) expected users and use and 2) whether you are only
concerned with individual isolate photos, or whether you want to
establish connections to a set of photos or to a historical period or
subject matter context.
In part that depends upon how much publishing your group is doing and
the extent to which your society uses photos from your collection in
exhibits. It also depends upon whether you have a "drift in"
collection--happily accepting photos that cross your path, or if you
have a "sought out" collection, happily accepting volunteered photos but
going beyond them and trying to find photos to fill out specific content
areas such as a sub collection of as many photos of your rural schools
(buildings, students, teachers) as you can gather.
With a few exceptions we had been following the "drift" in approach
and our early collections were often made up of photos that people gave
us or that came from post cards--either way, the original was kept by us
and the photos were enlarged on a color copier for our public albums. If
we had to, we accepted a copy if it had been done on a color copy
machine (even if it was a black and white photo.) Then we encountered a
woman who was happy to put some key photos in our collection but she
did not want the orignals to leave her house. We were stymied. A year
or two later we got a lap top and scanning bed and went to her home and
other homes selecting photos directly from albums that fit our various
categories. .
Currently, I am the most frequent user of our photo collection using
photos to accompany newsletter items and newspaper articles and helping
our exibit folks find the photos that will connect to actual artifacts.
In addition, we occasionally have a request for certain photos.
Yesterday I helped a businesman select photos from our collection of
buildings that his company has recently replaced with a new building. I
designed our categories for this kind of use to be able to find a
specific photo relatively quickly for my own or someone else's use.
Making some or all of the more than 3,000 photos available on the web
is something that is just beginning to be thought about. My thought so
far is that if we put photos of people up, we need also to give the
names. Fine for portraits, but I shudder at correctly naming all of the
students in a photo of a class. I am pretty sure that more people
check web sites for genealogical information than they do for local
history. I also feel rather strongly that other photos--buildings,
events, etc. should be presented in photo essays with a breif amount of
text tieing them together and telling a brief story. But the amount of
accurate typing involved looks horendous. (We only have about 20 active
local members and only a few are good typists.) If we do move into this
area, I hope we will develop a general organization plan and then work
on parts of it at a time.
"Share Captioning"
Also, Tom, would you please explain what you mean by "share
captioning among several volunteers." I went to the web site and did
not see any explanations of the photos (ie captions) on that page. I am
guessing that Picasa is a scanning software that somehow makes an index
that one can print out and thus becomes your print photo inventory and
that you can print that inventory by photo subject. Is that the case?
If so are your captions limted to a few words or does the software have
various sub places for entering approximate date of the photo, donor,
and three or four places to give key context words? Or does it just
offer the opportunity to give one 5 or 10 word phrase.
Orgaizing photos already collected vs organizing photos as an on going
activity
Our photo archivist has kept a numbered list of all of the photos. I
only got involved with categorizing photos about 6 years ago when the
number was too great for me to remember each photo. Unfortunately, I
worked out the procedure Word processing outline that I am now
transferring to Exell before scanning became common place.
We have just had a member of the community volunteer to scan our
collection. At this point we expect simply to add the scan number to the
chronological list which gives number and content and eventually to add
it to the subject matter categorized lists or use the Excell sort
function on the chronological list and print a new subject matter index.
That effort is just beginning.
Our next problem is how we fit our new scans into the scanned
library because we are continually adding to our photo library. If
Carol. or anyone else who is beginning to work on a photo collection,
has waded through this, I suggest you try to find or develop an
efficient system which lets you scan, caption, list, categorize.in one
operation. Picasa or some such software may be the answer, i it gives
you enough flexibility in categorizing.. Exell is simple and works on
photos already in your collection, but it is a multi step process and
it is easy to forget to update the list as new scans come in.
I went back and inserted the paragraph about scanning in homes because
I do not enter captions on the photos I scan either then or shortly
after I do the scanning. In most cases both the photos I take and my
scans are captionless. I know I should but I hate to take the time. I
have the original scans and a large recent photo collecion on my
computer so I waste a lot of time trying to find photos. Even though
my memo is long, I am taking your time to alert others that it will make
life much simpler if you develop skill in adding captions as you scan or
take photos. However, I have not done enough of it to know if you can
get a complete enough caption to be able to sort by for multiple
categories.
And yes, I know when I decide to respond I go on too long. However,
from my 4-H and professional adult education background I am a very
strong believer in the importance of local history societies building
photo files and connecting them to enrich text, AV, and exhibit
presentations on the history of the area.
S
----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Duescher
To: localhistory@listserve.uwec.edu
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 12:53 PM
Subject: Re: Cataloging Photos
Carol,
I have been in the computer industry for 30 + years and found the
solutions using Excel to caption images just does not work well for a
multitude of reasons.
http://picasaweb.google.com/kaukaunapubliclibrary
This is the solution for photos and captioning that we found works
well. I have set this up for 3 Historical groups with great success.
It is free and does not require any software other than a scanner. It
allows us to share captioning among several volunteers and it can easily
be backed up. Most people that could run Excel can be trained in about
15 minutes.
I would be happy to provide additional help if you are interested.
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: gardner87@netzero.net
To: localhistory@listserve.uwec.edu
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: Cataloging Photos
Barbara & Sara,
Thanks for your thoughts on cataloging pictures. We are also a
new committee and even though we have not started on the pictures yet we
are hoping to begin this winter.
As I understand you are using Excel. Cataloging with multi
entries on one picture depending on it's contents and then you are
sorting with the Excel program when you are looking for a particular
subject. That sounds great. So if I am correct or need to be corrected
let me know.
I do not know that our pictures have been catalog at all. We have
a house with the family photo's that we like to use as we show the
house. We use the pictures for specific events or holidays etc.
Example the graduation pictures of the family were out in the spring.
Recently we were sharing pictures of the family doing summer things like
fishing and visiting family. So you have the idea I am sure.
Thansk for any thoughts you might give me.
Carol Gardner
Pontiac, Il