Photographs Exhibited at the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915
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Grant Holder:
Professor Stephen Brown
This is a resource enhancement project that has created a browsable and searchable database of historic photographic exhibition catalogues, supplemented by scans of the catalogue pages, contemporary reviews and illustrations of the exhibits.
The most comprehensive records of photographic exhibitions for the latter part of the 19th century are those of the Photographic Society of Great Britain, London, which, after 1870, are published in full in The Photographic Journal. The 44 extant catalogues of the Photographic Society of Great Britain contain around 30,000 individual records, including, for the first time, accompanying line or half tone illustrations of some of the photographs exhibited. They offer a unique insight into the personalities, products, techniques, tastes and artistic and commercial trends of this period, as well as the fortunes of the Royal Photographic Society itself. After 1870 the Photographic Society of Great Britain was recognised as the leading photographic society, attracting a wide constituency of photographers, from Britain, Europe and America. Many individuals launched their photographic career by exhibiting at the Royal Photographic Society and a significant number went on to become leading practitioners of their day.
When viewed together with the previously AHRC funded Photographs Exhibited in Britain 1839-1865 (http://peib.dmu.ac.uk), Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915 is a unique online resource for scholars of the 19th century history of photography.
Generation of HTML files from XML data for web-delivery; Production of compressed JPEG files from uncompressed TIFF files for web dissemination.
| Project start date: 2007-01 | Project end date: 2008-03 |
Subject domains:
Era(s):
Country/region(s):
| Methods used | Category |
|---|---|
| 2d Scanning and photography | Data capture |
| Accessibility analysis | Strategy and project management |
| Cataloguing and indexing | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Documentation | Strategy and project management |
| Human factors analysis | Strategy and project management |
| Iterative design | Strategy and project management |
| Prototyping | Strategy and project management |
| Record linkages | Data analysis |
| Searching and querying | Data analysis |
| Server scripting | Data publishing and dissemination |
| System quality assurance and code testing | Strategy and project management |
| Usability analysis | Strategy and project management |
| Interface design | Data publishing and dissemination |
| Web browser scripting | Data publishing and dissemination |
| text | Content types |
Funding sources:
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Content types created:
Dataset/structured data, Still Image/Graphics, Text
Software tools used:
Adobe Photoshop, BBEdit, Adobe Acrobat, Coda, Opera, Chicken of the VNC
Source material used:
The Photographic Journal 1870-1915 Source: Mainly Birmingham Libraries, supplemented from a variety of sources to cover occaisional gaps in the collection.
Photograms of the Year Source: Birmingham Libraries.
All the catalogue pages have been scanned to a resolution of 600 dpi for archival purposes. From these, all the data relating directly to the exhibitions have been transcribed and entered into the database. Peripheral information, such as advertisements that appeared in the catalogues, has not been transcribed. Similarly, exhibition reviews that appeared in Photograms of the Year have been scanned but not transcribed. However, all the page scans are available for viewing. In addition to the catalogues we have drawn on the exhibition reviews that appeared in the contemporary annual publication Photograms of the Year, in particular for additional pictures of the exhibits.
Digital resource created:
Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915 is a browsable and searchable database of historic photographic exhibition catalogues, supplemented by scans of the catalogue pages, contemporary reviews and illustrations of the exhibits. The primary target audience is photographic history researchers. When viewed together with the previously AHRC funded Photographs Exhibited in Britain 1839-1865 (http://peib.dmu.ac.uk), Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915 is a unique online resource for the research of 19th century photographic history.
Access to digital resource:
Open Access
Data Formats created:
Extensible Markup Language (XML), JPEG File Interchange Format (JPG), MySQL, PHP, Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
Metadata standards employed:
Dublin Core, simple (DC)
Institutions affiliated with this project:
| UK HE institutions involved: |
|---|
| De Montfort University |
| UK HE institutions involved: |
|---|
| Birmingham Libraries |
Project staff and expertise:
| Principal staff member: | Professor Stephen Brown; Professor Roger Taylor |
|---|---|
| Other staff: | Postdoctoral researcher(s) / Research assistant(s) |
| External expertise: |
| Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) of record | Stephen Brown |
| Title | Photographs Exhibited at the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915 |
| Record created | 2008-05-09 |
| Record updated | 2010-06-11 11:17 |
| URL of record | http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2300 |
| Citation of record | Stephen Brown: Photographs Exhibited at the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915. <http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2300> created: 2008-05-09, last updated 2010-06-11 11:17 |