Shacklett's Historical Photographs Collection

As the summer intern at the Rutherford County Archives, I continued the processing, digitizing, and describing of the Shacklett's Historical Photographs Collection. Richard Shacklett was a photographer in Murfreesboro, Tennessee from the 1930s until his death. His studio is still family owned and operated. Shacklett's Photography donated over 30,000 historical photographs and negatives to the Rutherford County Archives several years ago. This collection of photographs is believed to be the most significant  collection of Middle Tennessee history, as it spans from the 1860s to the present day. Each year, the summer intern processes, digitizes, and describes the images in the Archives' image database. In the summer of 2014, I added over 800 images to the database. 

Processing and Preservation

Archivist John Lodl selected photographs of particular interest (usually choosing negatives of historical significance or with preservation needs) and set them aside for me to process. In the processing stage, I did any necessary  preservation work, which normally entailed cleaning negatives with a light brushing or air blowing. Next, I assigned a unique number to each individual photograph, while also noting the original order of a series of photographs. For example, an envelope with 5 photographs in it would become SP000912 A through E. I processed the photographs to the item level, giving each photograph or negative its own sleeve with a unique title. I also provided an estimation of the date of the image. The Rutherford County Archives uses a small list of Library of Congress Subject Headings to classify their photographs, so I did that as well.

Digitizing and Describing

After processing the negatives, I scanned them using the Archives' Epson Scanner and software. I scanned each image as a 300 dpi tif file to preserve hard drive space. The scanned images are used for access purposes, and any reproductions must be ordered through Shacklett's photography, so 300 dpi was sufficient. 

 

After scanning the negatives and photographs, I described them in the Archives' image database. The database uses many Dublin Core fields like title, date range, description, physical dimensions, subjects, and many more. I attempted to be as descriptive as possible when filling in the Dublin Core elements for each individual image. Access to the photographs is the whole reason I worked on the project, so my description was the key in ensuring access to future patrons.