HCHM Goes Digital: the Photograph Collection

by Kristine Schmucker, HCHM Curator

Recently, several of the visitors to the museum have come to research a specific address in Newton.  They were particularly interested in photographs.  They were also in somewhat of a time crunch.  Luckily, a staff member could help them conduct a search of the photo archives on the computer by street address. The photos in our collection for this address quickly appeared on the screen.  The researchers were able to order the photos they wanted and return later to pick up their copies.

Our ability to do this type of search of our entire collection of photographs did not happen over night.  This service is available only because a dedicated museum  volunteer, Linda Koppes, spent several years scanning each photo in the collection.  The Photograph Collection consists of over 9,000 images of all sizes. She then described and made research notes for each photo. A searchable data base was created using keywords and search terms.  If we did not have this, staff would be required to search through the original photographs and the above request would have taken considerable amount of staff time.  

Looking through the photo archives on the computer is a free service offered by HCHM.  A charge is collected for reproducing the photograph.

Scanning the Photograph Collection to a computer on the main level is one way we are increasing accessibility to our collections.

Partnership with Forsythe Library, Ft. Hays State University

We are also very excited about our partnership with Ft. Hays State University Forsythe Library.  They are working with us to put our photographs on-line. The very first  group of photos, the John C. Nicholson Collection, is on line now.

To try it out visit Harvey County Historical Society Photographs.

Example of the photos on the Forsythe Library site.

John C.Nicholson
Example of photographs available at
Harvey County Historical Society Photographs

Collection Name	Nicholson Family Collection
Title	John C. Nicholson - he is sitting and is wearing a suit
Description	Large photo stored in Vault, Oversized Photo Box 3. Color-tinted portrait of John C. Nicholson.
Accession Number	2011.154
Subject	Men--Portraits Clothing & dress Harvey County (Kan.)
Personal Name	Nicholson, John C.
Collection	Nicholson Family Collection
Place	Newton, Harvey County, Kansas
Repository	Harvey County Historical Society
Digitization Specifications	Original scanned on an HP Photosmart C4640 at 300 dpi in Color, 8-bit file by the Harvey County Historical Society. Saved as a TIFF, then re-sized and saved as a JPEG by the Harvey County Historical Society.
Publisher Digital	Forsyth Library Digital Library Area, Fort Hays State University
Date Digital	2011-04-04
Resource Identifier	201115460.jpg
Format Original	Print
Format Original Size	16" x 20"
Format Digital	image/jpeg
Home Location	Vault, Oversized Photos, Box 3
Type	Still Image
Rights Management	Copyright Harvey County Historical Society. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced without permission. To request permission, contact HCHM, 203 N. Main, P.O. Box 4, Newton, KS 67114. Phone: 316-283-2221; E-mail: info@hchm.org. Please credit Harvey County Historical Society as your source.

Our volunteer photo tech continues to work to get more photos ready for the on-line site at Forsythe Library. The next collection will be the J. Burch Stuart Collection.  Stuart was a long time NHS chemistry teacher and an active member at the Harvey County Historical Society.  Most of his photos are from the 1950s through the 1970s.  Following that, the focus will be on up loading photos from the other six Harvey County communities.

The staff at HCHM continues to look for ways to make our Archives, the objects in our collection and photographs more accessible to the public. We are excited for the opportunity to provide parts of our photograph collection on-line!

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