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Including Images in this Archive

While we set up this archive it is designed to be everyone's archive. However we want to keep it to historical photos not a general collection of all photos, there are existing projects that do this very well, Geograph being the best example for current or relatively current photos that can be identified as being relevant to a specific place.

The ideal photos, from our viewpoint, are those from the 1960's or before, but if you have something that is historically relevant later than this then we would also like to add it. In practice some items up to the 1990's can be historically interesting, where places have changed. We have not drawn a date line, but if you like, you could say we want absolutely anything we can find before the First World War (1914), and can be general interest, tourism and things that show how people lived, worked and the like, to the Second World War (1939), and more major historically interesting items since.

Can I tell you, while not wishing to offend, what is of little value to us, loads of snapshots of family members at social events or portraits, and generally we have little interest in photos of people unless they are really well known or they show something very specific.  Having said this, if someone had a specific interest in becoming the archivist looking into this area or some aspect of it, then we would encourage them to take this on, either on theire own or as a part of a team effort.

If you are not sure then ask, we have a tendency to want to include items once we get excited about them.

There are a number of ways to include information:-

• If you can take really good photos of it then you can send us photos.

• If you have a small or large collection we may be able to come and scan or photograph it.

• We may be able to get another volunteer archivist to come and photograph it.

We are also interested in collecting lower quality background photos, for example scans of postcards, so whatever is available we would like to consider adding it to this archive.

If the images are not yours, taken by you, and if taken in 1905 they are unlikely to be, then please give some thought to who might own the rights to these images. Most old images are out of copyright, or either no one knows who owns the rights or there are no owners, for example a company that went bust.

Generally the later the photos, the more the risk that someone might get upset by us having the images available. Having said this, there are a lot of images on websites, eBay allows photos of prints and postcards for sale, so millions of images are online at any time, collectors of china, antiques etc have photos of designs on many sites, these designs are the copyright on the designers or producers of the goods, several publishers collect old photos of a place or area at a time and produce books of these, so we don't want to be so frightened that we don't do anything.

If it's clearly in copyright and we don't have permission then we should leave it out of the archive unless the owner of the rights allows us to include it. If there's no conceivable way to know and the image looks old then we will include it and take it out if there is an objection from someone who has a valid claim to it and its the same photo.

We are NOT selling any of the prints from the archive, and the Creative Commons Licence we are attaching to the images are use for non commercial users, so realistically few, if any, will get upset by this.

If you own the rights we credit you, if you don't then we treat it as an anonymous donation, so there is never going to be any comeback on contributors.

Again if this concerns you please ask.

You can send a small number of submissions attached to an email, but larger volumes are better put on CD's or DVD's. If you have a large collection then it may be that we should call around with a plug in hard drive to collect them from you.  Let us know what you have and we will advise you on the best way to get them to us. If you have information to go with the photos then this is also helpful.