Pictures From The Past UI Makes Historic Images Available On The Internet

It’s 1903, east of Wallace. A passenger railcar dangles off the end of a railroad trestle that’s been ripped apart by a snowslide.

A photographer, casting a shadow in snow, captures the moment … for the Internet.

The historic drama is among a handful of images that now can be seen on the University of Idaho Library computer web site. Next year, thanks to two grants, the school will begin digitizing many more of the 150,000 pictures in its Historic Photograph Collection.

That will make the pictures more available to the public, both at the UI’s library in Moscow and eventually to a worldwide computer audience via the Internet.

Digitization is an important step in preserving fragile prints, said Terry Abraham, head of special collections. Researchers can look at computer images and no longer will need to touch the originals.

People who want copies of the historic pictures will continue to pay the library to obtain prints and publication rights.

The digital images won’t be good enough for high-quality reproduction, said Abraham, because the library can’t afford a top-notch scanner and the software to run it.

“We will concentrate on providing access to images, making a representation and not a reproducible picture,” said Abraham.

“We hate to see lousy copies of our photographs,” he added.

Grainy reproductions don’t do justice to many of the historic photos, especially the exquisitely detailed ones taken with large-format cameras. That includes pictures from the Barnard-Stockbridge collection, such as those of the 1903 train wreck. They were printed from 8-by-10-inch glass negatives.

The Barnard-Stockbridge pictures came from a Wallace photo studio. They document life in the heyday of the Silver Valley mining district. They are some of the most requested pictures in the library collection, so likely will be among the first that are digitized, Abraham said. The same goes for pictures of the university campus and activities.

The school received $2,000 from the Idaho Heritage Trust and $2,000 from the Library Associates to help purchase the necessary equipment.

Plans call for digitizing more than 1,250 images in 1997.

“That’s the first step in a long, long process,” said Abraham.

It could take 30 to 40 years to make computerized copies of the entire collection, he said. The length of time will depend on how much the university can spend to pay students to operate the equipment.

To Abraham’s knowledge, the University of Idaho Library is the only Inland Northwest institution that’s starting to digitize its photo collection. Regionally, the Oregon State Archives and University of British Columbia have put many of their photos on line, he said.

The collection’s Internet address is: http://www.lib.uidaho.edu/specialcollections.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo