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Free, cool stuff! OC Archives’ generosity irks history buffs
December 9th, 2008, 6:30 am · 11 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
(Vote! Should OC Archives charge for photos?)
Following the (not exactly shabby) example of the National Archives, our very own Orange County Archives has begun posting awesome historical photos to the flickr.com web site - where kids writing history papers and authors writing books (and people with too much time on their hands) can access them, and use them, and marvel over them, for free.
(The Watchdog loves this one of 1920s-era citrus workers from the Hewes Ranch posing proudly with thei
r produce. And that one below of the Knott family at Mission San Juan Capistrano feeding the pigeons! We probably spent too much time at the site….)
Anyway, the Watchdog admits to a rather strong bias toward letting the public access public stuff for free. But we were taken with the arguments of a gentleman from a far smaller, and independent, historical society in Orange County - one which doesn’t have the influx of government dollars that the OC Archives enjoys. (The OC Archives accounts for about $240,000 in the Orange County Clerk-Recorder’s $12.4 million
annual budget).
He argues that:
- the county is giving away things of value for free on the Internet, possibly losing out on tens of thousands of dollars it could be collecting in user fees;
- the county could be exposing itself to lawsuits if users alter images to defame someone pictured therein;
- and (we suspect, more to the heart of the matter), he worries that free access to awesome historical photos will “cut the legs” out from under smaller historical societies, which need the revenue generated by such things to survive.
A quick review of Orange County public library and historical societies’ web sites shows that use fees range from $35 to $85 per image. “We’re not supported by tax money,” the gent said. “We’re 501c3, we have to charge money to survive. When the OC Archives does what it’s doing, it tends to drive other private historical societies out of business.”
The gent asked not to be identified, for fear his complaints might inspire the OC Archives folks to post a spate of historical photos from his city on flickr.
We doubt that would happen - we’ve worked beside Archives Director Jean O. Pasco in the journalism world for years before she defected to the public sector, and know her to be an all-around stand-up kind of gal - but we brought the larger issue to her.
The OC Archives is simply following the lead of the National Archives,
Pasco said - trying to give the public easy access to what already belongs to the public.
County Archivist Susan Berumen continued the conversation. “We’ve never had a usage fee discusison,” Berumen said. “The archives have been here for the public. We have never charged anything that we are not required to charge by the state of California. That’s the beauty of being able to work here - we provide the service for free, and in that we’re similar to just about every other county archives. These things belong to the people.”
The OC Archives actually opened the flickr account on the recommendation of the Library of Congress, 
she said, and hasn’t had any negative responses.
The we-could-be-sued-if-someone-alters-a-photo argument doesn’t much phase her. “That’s not our piece of work, that’s their piece of work,” she says. Or, you can do terrible things to the Mona Lisa in PhotoShop, but that doesn’t mean her descendents can sue the Louvre - or even da Vinci.
Orange County Archives, according to its web site, ”identifies, catalogs, protects and provides access to county records and other 
materials that are of long term, historical value. Volumes of historic photographs, correspondence, property records, artifacts and numerous materials on the history of Orange County are made accessible to the public, researchers and historical organizations.”
It has everything from bound volumes of the Huntington Beach News from 1908 to the complete papers of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority.
Who uses the Archives? “School children, college students, 
academics, people writing books or articles about the area, researchers, and also just people who are interested looking at the photos,” Berumen said. “It’s just a lovely way to remember where you grew up or your past. Everything here belongs to the people of Orange County.”
(These photos, all found at the flickr.com site, are Disneyland around 1960; Boy Scouts around 1911; the Old County Courthouse around 1910; Aliso Viejo in 1960; cattle branding around 1913; Laguna Beach around 1910; and hay hauling, around the same 
time, all courtesy of the OC Archives.)
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11 Comments
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Sour grapes. If these images belong to the public then we should not have to pay for them. Historical Societies should welcome to the digital age and take advantage of this no-cost medium.
The Gent in this article needs to step into the 21st Century. Before these photos were placed online, I could just go to the archives and look at them there, now I can look at them online. This is a public service PAID for by my tax dollars, why should I have to pay for it again??
Private/Small Historical Societies is the euphemism for older people who do not like change or have been cast away from the normal avenues of scholarly research.
It’s a shame that the gentleman feels threatened. Perhaps he just needs to be sure his pictures are unique, and make them more accessible to the public for purchase. He need to look to adding value to what he offers, to ensure it’s worth what he’s charging.
It’s easy to superimpose a watermark to ensure they’re not stolen.
Or perhaps he should get into another line of work, where he’s not charging for a public good.
“The OC Archives is simply following the lead of the National Archives, Pasco said - ”
Did you know the National Archives threw away ORIGINAL documents such as patents, speeches etc. by Edison, Franklin, Lincoln and hundreds of others because they simply scanned them and thought they were just a nuisance piling up?
Will OC do the same too?
normancay is right. who would pay $35-85 to view a picture, or have a digital copy of it for a grade school report that will be viewed once.
imagine that in this day and age people want to keep these images hidden in a dusty old back room of a library or historical society building? hogwash
you can still sell prints, which generally will pay for the other uses and costs. let people look at them for free.
I echo the earlier comment. This is not a FREE service, it is a service paid for by our tax dollars, just as the Archives is funded by our tax dollars. My thanks to the Archives for providing even easier access to local history by posting selected photos online. Keep it up! And, if you go to the OC Public Libraries website (www.ocpl.org), you will see that the Library also has posted historical photographs for the public to view without charge.
As a long-time volunteer board member for a local historical Society (celebrating our 34 yr anniversary), the project leader of our digital archive project, and the web-guy for our and another society’s website, I heartily endorse the OC Archives performing this service and posting the images. Their photos excite me and often show me sides of our county that I’ve never seen before.
It’s very true that societies and groups around the country are offering the public online access to photos that normally would be hidden in our file cabinets. Our society is - as is the other society I’m the web-master for. The photo pages get the most hits of any of our pages. I’ve had people around the country respond with appreciation to see these images of the past.
And to not promote the vintage photos on the internet is stupid. (Excuse my bluntness.) Here we’re all trying to get more people interested in history and vintage photos are a great way to to it. People love looking at them. (Look at the amazing sales of all the books in the Arcadia series!) And people interested in old photos might just be our future members and board leaders.
The Archives should get an award for allowing this access.
By the way, I find it offensive when a Society charges so much for pictures for non-commercial use when the groups were given the photos for free in the first case. And in most cases, the Society DOES NOT OWN the photo or the copyright to the image. And if the funding for the scanning or their archives came from a public grant or the city (i.e. the public - you and me), then how can they keep a straight face charging these fees.
Yes. Societies do need the extra revenue that selling vintage photos for big bucks can bring in. As a board member of a historical, I totally understand the need to raise revenue to support our mission. But I don’t really think it’s right to do so at that level - particularly not for non-commercial use.
Thanks to the OC Archives for being so accessible. If they didn’t take care of our history, who would? The “altering photographs” argument does not hold water. Way to go, Archives Department!
We should just destroy that old crap and that will increase the value of any remaining photos, until we destroy them too!
To answer an earlier question, no, the Orange County Archives will not throw away any photos just because we’ve scanned them. We digitize for easy access and portability, as well as to protect the originals from handling. Digitization is an access tool, not a preservation tool.
This has been a great, lively discussion and completely appropriate. Historians need to continue to address these issues of ethics and access to historic materials, especially in light of quickly advancing technology. I am a board officer for a local non-profit historical society, and Guy Ball’s comments above are spot on.
One of the main goals of a historical society should be to engage and inspire the public to recognize the value of historic preservation–not simply to safeguard artifacts from our past. Yes, our non-profit experiences the same financial challenges (that I’m sure will worsen in today’s economy), but the dollars should not be pursued at the expense of the mission.
The benefits of free access to materials far outweighs the financial gain, and I am excited that so much more will now be available to the public. Engaging more people in this way will hopefully result in more supporters for non-profits (through financial and material donations, and volunteerism), and spark the interest of students who will be our future historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and preservationists.