Mission
Provide a mechanism for the collection and archival of photographs significant in the history of Cole County, Missouri, to provide a secure location and preserve the photos for viewing by future generations.
Committment
The Cole County Historical Society has made a significant committment to collecting, archiving and protecting the significant vintage photographs of Cole County, Missouri by investing in a temperature and humidity controlled storage area of approximately 660 square feet in which to house these valuable photographs for the future. The archival area currently houses almost 3,000 photographs which are general submission photos that have already been digitized plus approximately 80,000 negatives from the Zeal and Betty Wright Collection that were acquired by the historical society a little over three years ago.
In addition to this sizeable collection of photographs, the society is acquiring state primary records that are scheduled for destruction once they have been microfilmed. These retired primary records are valuable resources for history and genealogy studies and are currently being stored with the vintage photographs.
The society is in the process of acquiring appropriate shelving and boxes in which to store the archival negatives and vintage photographs and arranging in order to access them for the future. The Zeal Wright collection is completely indexed and housed in 52 card catalog drawers and volunteers are in the process of identifying and indexing the approximately 3,000 general submission photos and digital derivatives.
In addition to the physical facilities to preserve the photos, the historical society has acquired a new server/workstation intended for use housing the digital images of these photos and others made available to the historical society. These digital images are in the process of being indexed for ease of viewing via search and retrieval software, capable of sharing them across the in-house network.
Special Projects
Volunteer
