Photos, Scrapbooks and Digital Images

Rorey,

Life is messy. Research is messy. We try to be tidy in our citations, but life and the realities of research thwart our best efforts. Your photo collection presents a good demonstation of that.

If EE were to design a model for situations like this, EE would probably create a "collection name" for all those photos your mother-in-law owned or another. Nothing fancy is needed. Just call it, say, "Photo Collection of Mary Jones Smith (1921-2011), Anytown, Whateverstate."  All photos that came from her could then be cited to that collection.

Readers of your citation would then wonder what happened to that photo collection, so you would need to add (in your bibliography and your first reference note) some statement that fills that need.

Your second and third questions will be answered separately.

Rorey wrote: (Question 2):  "In some instances, I am using a single image cropped from a digital scan of an entire scrapbook page. A derivative of an image copy. My inclination is to cite the original so that users of my blog/database will know who possesses the scrapbook in question. But that is not the source. The source is the digital image of the page from which I cropped the single photo. Do you err on the side of too much detail in this case?"

Rorey, TMI is a good catchword to remember when we're divulging personal details. But history researchers who write blogs have the freedom to provide as much detail as they think their readers need. Most of us, I suspect, appreciate all the relevant details an author wants to provide—and those who don't can simply ignore you.

All that aside, if you present an image of a partial page in some historic scrapbook, you obviously have a reason for focusing on one image. Typically, you focus on that image because that's what's relevant to your research (just as, when you read a book page, you will focus on one relevant passage). Your citation would also focus on that image. You would identify the scrapbook from which you took it, with all its glorious details about ownership and provenance.

Whether you wish to point out that you first scanned the full scrapbook page, but then cropped it to that one image is something you would decide on the basis of whether the point was significant in that particular case. For example: was there a dimunition of quality in the process of creating the partial image or some other factor that would affect your research?  

All this, of course, is why EE 2.1 starts out by saying "Citation is an art, not a science." Good researchers learn the principles, then exercise their judgment as to when and how to adapt.

Rorey wrote (Question 3): "Referencing 'Privately held by...'. How much of a living individual's name may we leave off and still credibly cite them as the possessor of a given collection? Not every contributor wants their full name coming up in Google because they've lent me access to their artifact collection."

Rorey, this is another of those questions for which "It depends" is the only sensible answer. The ideal is to fully identify the person, together with a name and address. If the issue involves provenance of an object or the "authority" with which a person speaks on a certain subject, then sound research notes would include whatever information necessary to answer those questions. When living people are involved, EE also recommends that exact addresses be held private. We record them in our research notes, but we don't distribute those addresses.

Many scholarly journals follow the practice of  identifying the person by the name they commonly use, with only a city and state. The underlying logic is that the person should be identified fully enough that history researchers of the future will be able to connect the writer's source to a real person. 

As a blogger, you walk a thinner line. Some people, as you say, are willing to share but don't want to be identified. Some don't want to be bothered with endless inquiries from the public. Some have other reasons for not wanting the world to know they have a certain object. As researchers and writers, we also have to respect that. 

As workarounds, we might use a person's initials and surname, or just initials, as in: "photo supplied by J.A.H., of Whatever City, who prefers not to be named but has supplied the following provenance for the article ..." If the informant doesn't agree to having a city identified, then that information would not be used. If a donor doesn't supply provenance, then you can't either; but you would owe yourself and your readers an explanation of why you trust the information supplied or the identity asserted for a photograph.

The bottom line is a question only you can answer: What and how much do I need to say to reassure my readers of the authenticity of what I'm offering?   If you are meticulous in your documentation and careful in your analysis of evidence but, on a rare occasion, cannot identify a living source, then your readers will likely accept your judgment and respect you for holding a confidence.