Next up: Developing the Photograph Archives

Harry Casey Collection,
Imperial Valley Desert Museum Photograph Archives

These last few weeks of the year will be spent finishing a project to secure our photograph archives. This summer an intern curated many of the photographs in the collection, including 200 photographs and 1,600 35MM slides. These images include a few aerial photographs, some notable landmarks, archeological sites, and several photographs which appear to have been put together as part of lectures at the college. Few of the images are significant additions to the collection, but some, the one shown here taken by Harry Casey, are amazing photographs that are very important historical documents in themselves.

Images are delicate artifacts and it is best to relocate them when the outside temperature is cool in the desert. Otherwise, drastic temperature changes can reek havoc with the ink and paper materials that make up the photographs or slides. This is especially true in the case of our collection of historic glass slides. Now that the winter weather is upon us, it is the best time to move the rest of the photo collections into the new building.