Photographic heritage of Catalonia on the Net

Abstract

The photographic heritage of Catalonia is analysed, first specifying which photographs to include in this study and then describing the problems of quantifying this heritage. The online presence of this photographic heritage is assessed on the basis of the 26 Catalan institutions that manage photography archives and either make photographs available on the network or have started digitization projects that now include at least 5,000 digitized images. Of these 26 entities, 15 offer Internet access to their collection of photographs, with a total of more than 250,000 photographs available. The study details the total size of each collection, number of digitized images, and how many of these images are available online. The difference between digitized images and images available online is explained by the difficulties encountered in digitizing, cataloguing, and publishing the images online with the appropriate software and managing copyright issues related to the photographs.