A frequent reference inquiry that we receive is if we have a photograph (or any image) of a particular person, team or group. The Archives receive these requests for a variety of reasons, including the passing of an alum, retirements, reunions, or when the University is honoring significant student athletes. Responding to these inquiries can be simple, time-consuming, or nearly impossible based on several factors.
Simple: If the request is for an alumnus that graduated within the last 100 years or so, we almost always have their senior photo in the War Whoop. If they were involved in activities like a sport, the Pegasus Players, or an active campus club, this often means that not only are they more likely to appear frequently in the War Whoops, but other publications (such as the Guidon), or they were likely to have been captured by campus photographers and can be located in our extensive Norwich University Photograph Collection.
Senior portraits from the 1911 War Whoop.
Complex: Things get more difficult from the early years of Norwich. Photographs were less common, and preservation and documentation of names or dates was not always a priority. We may see hockey uniforms, but the players might only be able to be identified by a contemporary who knew them as students. Further, we have many collections that include photographs yet are not primarily photograph collections, and an overabundance of options can be challenging. Seeking a particular photograph of W. Russell Todd? Check the Guidon, Norwich University Record, War Whoop, Norwich University Photograph Collection, W. Russell Todd Records, Development Records… the list goes on and on.
W. Russell Todd speaking at a fundraising event for Norwich University's 175th anniversary, 1994
Nearly Impossible: This is the case when we have someone who attended, taught, or was otherwise affiliated with NU and there is virtually no record of them. This happened most often in the 19th century, but it continues today. A few of our collections are processed to the extent where we have a definite idea of everything that they contain (usually smaller collections), but often we only have a general date range of slides, negatives, and prints (physical or digital) that were transferred to us in bulk and minimally processed – essentially creating a needle in a haystack. So why nearly impossible instead of impossible? We can never confirm if something does or does not exist just because we are not aware of it. Think about it: How many photos of you might be out there that you are not aware of because you forgot a time when a friend took a picture, or perhaps you were unknowingly in the background of a stranger’s vacation photo? Sometimes, we stumble across significant photographs in places we were not even looking like the Doc Martin photograph that was discovered (and helpfully labeled) in the scrapbook of Jason T. Bickford, Class of 1922.
Page from a from Jason T. Bickford's scrapbook including a photo of Doc Martin.
Technology can help, but instead of solving the problem of locating images, it has created some new hurdles. Digitization has made searching and sharing much easier, but photography has also become increasingly disposable. Photos are shared on social media, but where does the original go – how is it preserved when someone no longer has access to the account in which it is stored? At Norwich, instead of a handful of hard-working and talented photographers that document campus life and meticulously record what they capture, now everyone is a photographer. How can an Archive ensure that all those thousands of images captured every year are available for the future? These are questions that we are working to answer.
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