Hi David
Taking off my Kew hat and putting on my photographic history hat, I'd say this can be a major issue, but the extent is incredibly variable depending on the collection and specifically who has done the cataloguing. As with all such things, knowing the source of the identification is key to having confidence but this is rarely attributed in online catalogues. With digitised photographic images it is also particularly hard to spot errors as even the more pronounced differences, for example between an ambrotype and a daguerreotype, can almost vanish. This means that to find the figures you are looking for you really need a photographic historian to revisit the actual collection, which may not be altogether practical!
The other major issue is to what extent the material is correctly identified but then incorrectly (or inconsistently) catalogued. I am loathed to single out one collection as an example, not least because it has one of the most comprehensive and accessible collections of photographs and is something I use regularly, but if you look at the National Trust's online collection a text search will reveal 140 results for 'ambrotype', with only a couple of results that I might even start to question, but only 20 objects actually appear under the 'Object Type' of 'ambrotype' (some appear under 'cased images', some under 'direct positives', some under 'framed photographs', etc). Not to mention the typographic errors, with more objects classified as 'daguerrotype' than 'daguerreotype'. But as if to underline my first point, it's no surprise that the images from the Fox Talbot Museum appear to be rather better catalogued than those of other Trust collections.
Coming back to your question, I can't give you any evidence or facts and figures, but would suggest the following:
- Dr Michael Pritchard (Director General of the RPS, but also I believe a Research Fellow at DMU) and also try posting on Michaels's site http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/ which will reach a whole community of experts, not just in the UK
- Mark Osterman, Photographic Process Historian at George Eastman House (see http://www.collodion.org/bio.html)
I can give you email addresses for both if you want to contact me off-list.
As far as I know the best practical reference work on the subject remains Reilly's "Care and identification of 19th-century photographic prints", published in 1986, which includes a pull-out flowchart for identifying processes.
Regards, James
(also @PhotosOfThePast)
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James Morley [log in to unmask]
Website Development Manager +44 (0)20 8332 5759
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew www.kew.org
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> David Croft
> Sent: 06 June 2012 10:13
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Photographic process misidentification rates in professional
> collections
>
> Hello MCGers,
>
> For my research I need to be able to compare the different processes
> used between pairs of records and to identify the similarity of the
> processes mentioned in each record. However, part of the challenge in
> doing this is that the process listed in the metadata is not always
> correct. For example, tin types listed as dagarotypes. Is anyone aware
> of any research, or even better any figures, on the rates of process
> misidentification in collections? I've not been able to find anything
> with a quantitative analysis of the rates.
>
> Thanks
> David
>
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