The image collection has been housed on CDs at the library for the past 10 years; now is the first time the public will be able to browse the images online. It is a remarkable collection, with some of my favorite images being area soldiers, 1970's Halloween costumes, big bucks, kids, wild fires, swimming holes, early settlers, Indian natives, cigarettes, fun people, the Badger Theater at its best, and local cartoons.
For the past several months, I have been talking with Reedsburg Public Library director, Sue Steiner, and staff about the challenges and benefits of putting the historic photo collection online. Our goal in putting the images online is not only to provide a valuable resource for area people, but also to provide more exposure to the collection and encourage sales of full-resolution versions of the images. The library currently sells full-resolution images for $5 through the request form on their website.
With support from the Reedsburg Public Library and a grant from the Sauk County UW Extension, Arts & Culture Committee, I was able to go forward with the project by transferring the library's 19 GB photo collection from 37 CDs onto my computer, use Picasa (free) software to organize, edit, annotate, tag, (even made a map) and then upload the collection to Flickr.
Here are a few photos from the collection:
Please take a moment to browse the collection on your own, and if you find an image you really like, consider buying it at full resolution! Also, if you have information about any of the photos, feel free to leave comments.
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Is that a fiddle? Congratulations Paul! You must be a hero there in Reedsburg.
ReplyDeleteThanks Cat. That photo is "Mr. & Mrs. Gus Erdman. Played at barn dances in the 19-teens." from the Loganville collection. thought you might like that one.
ReplyDeleteAmazing Paul. I will be checking out all of the photos as I get time. Thank you for all of your hard work and time put into this project.
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