At the NMRS we have two types of air photograph collections: 
1) Vertical APs which are stored by sortie number (coded into a library number format) which are indexed by manual plots and digitised onto our GIS which enables quick retrieval (but by staff only). 
2) Obliques (mostly archaeological), which are on open access to the public stored by 1:10000 map sheet and individual site number (based on the old OS method) and are housed in box files alongside other information such as ground photographs, excavation photographs, news cuttings and photographs of plans. This is relatively straightforward for our users, as all photograph and site details are available on CANMORE, our on-line database, and we hope to have some digital images available on-line soon, as well as a map browser based on our GIS.

The most important issue is their retrieval. Mixing different collections shouldn't be a problem provided that they (or the negatives) are archivally secure, but if you have a system that works, do you need to change it?

Rebecca Jones
RCAHMS

>>> [log in to unmask] 12/20/01 11:28AM >>>
I would be grateful to hear how other people store their collections of aerial photographs?  At the moment in Cumbria we store each collection separately by film number.  These are cross-referenced to individual SMR entries and vice versa.  We find this works fine for us, but we have been advised that the photgraphs might be more suitably stored by individual map squares, ie,  SD2348, 2448, etc. To re-organise our 10,000 odd photogarphs in this manner would be considerably time-consuming and expensive.  I need to know if it will be worth doing it and would be grateful for any advice.  I can see the advantage of the map square method, but I am somewhat frightened of mixing all the different collections together in this manner.  What do other people think/do?

Many thanks.

Bette Hopkins
Cumbria SMR



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RCAHMS
(The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland)
John Sinclair House, 16 Bernard Terrace, Edinburgh, EH8 9NX
Tel: 0131 662 1456
Website: www.rcahms.gov.uk 
****************************************************
This email (and any files transmitted with it) is
confidential and intended solely for the use of the
individual or entity to whom it is addressed. It has
been swept for the presence of computer viruses.
****************************************************