Personal Archives

We all have photo collections relating to aviation and a lot of them will be valuable references to future researchers. I am belatedly getting around to doing a will. Has anyone any suggestions as to where my collection of airfield books and aviation related photos should be sent should something happen to me?

I assume the RAF Museum has all the books in its library and may not be interested in old airfield shots and aeroplane pictures from airshows.

Has anyone else considered this or is it just me going through a morbid phase?

Peter

Just found this thread PNK, while looking for another. One of things that I would like to discuss at our meeting, is the idea of having a central depository of airfield images which could form part of an AiX / ARG archive. I am still looking at the idea of a main archive but have hit a brick wall for the time being.
When you think that most of us on here take photos of airfield buildings etc and, that airfield landscapes are changing before our very eyes, in our lifetime. I feel therefore that it is our duty to record these places the best way we can and while we are able to do so for future generations. It is all very well however, each of us as individuals having privately owned collections which apart from the odd post on AiX, never sees the light of day. An example maybe is the recent East Riding display, which I am sure will be very good, but could have, been so much different if it included my images from the early 1980s. The average age too of the folk on here is going to be on the wrong side of 50, when I recently ask my wife, what will happen to my stuff when I go to the airfield in the sky, she gave me a demo by reaching for the Thompson Directory and showing me the page on skips! My kids are the same, they have no interest in airfields. This actually inspired me (amongst other things) to pursue the original archive idea.

I can imagine that folk might be concerned about copyright or giving away free images etc but that needs to be talked about – there has to be rules in place. I would be more than happy to provide DVDs etc of my pictures (which currently is well over 60 gig ) to a nominated person to hold in a central archive but what about everyone else? Feel free to discuss.

Personally I would be happy to hand over my collection of slides to an archive for anyone to use. Sure I would like to be mentioned if the picture is used for publication etc but I wouldn't get upset if I didn't. That is not why I took the picture in the first place.
My collection is no where near the standards of some of you and I can fully understand why this approach would be a problem.
The same goes for may collection of purchased plans and aerial photos, providing I have a scanned copy I will rarely, if at all, refer to the "original"
The plans are all copies from RAFM/TNA so although I paid to have them copied I would be more than happy for others to use them for private research purposes only. I have, for example a 1m x 1m aerial phot of Twinwood Farm from 1971 (from eBay). I am glad I bought it but what do I do with it now? Once I have scanned it will be stored. That is a shame because there might be someone in AiX or ARG land that might like to see it as well.
My collection of books will be a difficult one as I refer to a lot of them frequently so an archive would be inconvenient for those. The quarterlies produced by ARG and Air Britain are very space consuming so the PDF route might help here but the issue arises over membership. I am a member of Air Britain but not ARG (yes I know I should) so should I have access to ARG Reviews? Having said that I bought a load of eBay and have been sent airfield articles by the odd local council.

I have run out of time and people are looking over my shoulder (I am in an open plan office) so apologies for the meanderings above but hopefully it will be useful in the discussions.

I would like to go on Saturday but my wife owns my car so I have no transport.

Peter

PNK I am only talking about DVDs of images at this stage, not actual prints but I understand what you are saying. Nick her car keys PNK we need you at the meeting!

I agree that it is a good topic to discuss on Saturday - it looks like I can attend. There is an ARG Archive comprising various people's collections (such as Barry Abraham's) but access is tricky. Ray's doing a great job cataloging it all but storage and access could do with some thought.

Peter