Ralph DuPae's photo collection

That's quite a photo - and I notice the guys in the background are curious as to what is going on! I've been to the Winona County Historical Society every time I've done the JBS Winona cruise, and it is a nice setup in an old building. They've always taken me back into the stacks and left me on my own to rummage through their boxes of photos, which weren't catalogued much. Reprints were quite reasonable, about $5 I think. The one thing that worries me in that article is the statement that the collection is currently stored in a warehouse - supposedly awaiting an expansion of the building. Hopefully that won't be its permanent repose, out of touch with the public. But considering how user-friendly the Society has been in the past, I would expect them to come up with some way to get the collection into the main building. For those unfamiliar with Winona, this museum is in an old building downtown, just two blocks from the river. I'm curious about the 'negatives' statement, as I thought that they were the property of the U of W. I know they have many negatives there for which they haven't yet made the prints, so unless Ralph duplicated the negatives too, I question that. But with today's technologies, negatives aren't needed anyway. As most of you probably know, S&D through the J.Mack Gamble Fund, has generously supported this collection endeavor over the years for the U. I happened to be on a DQ cruise with Ralph and his son in 1976, I think, when he was just starting the project. Who would have thunk it'd grow so exponentially!!!

Judy, you do need the negatives.......there is no substitute for a good negative. Since I retired I've been working in the photo archives at the University of Louisville where they have housed over 1.5 million photos, including, as you know, the Howard Collection. They do everything they can to preserve the original negatives including keeping them in a temperature/humidity controlled enviroment.
They don't even attempt to preserve the photos digitally on the computer. Their reasoning is that technology is changing too fast and they would never be able to keep up. Just think about the floppy disk....computers don't even have ports for them anymore, or the tape caset, or the vcr tape...all gone in a ten year period. Also, the University does not have the server capacity to store 1.5 million photos in the TIF format which is required for good reproduction.
What they do to preserve photos is to make an excellent print from the negative on old fashioned fiber paper. Prints on fiber paper, stored in a controlled enviroment, will last well over a hundred years. With an excellent print you can make a decent copy negative if the need ever arises. The life of a film negative or a glass plate negative is limited even if they are stored properly.
Preserving photographs is not an easy task.
As an aside...the other day I came across an excellent picture of the BETSY ANN taken from the Clark Bridge in 1930 as she steamed past the Louisville wharf. As soon as I can I'll scan it and share it here on .org.

You must be in hog heaven going through the U of L photos... they have that wonderful Standard Oil "A Day in 1945" or whatever that collection is called showing all aspects of the river throughout one day. I remember Keith and I having to put on gloves to look through the photos to protect them from hand grease. Interesting on the negatives and preserving mode. I still take regular film pix and save the negatives as I'm not sold on how long these new methods will last. Only problem is hoping that there will be some businesses in the future left to process negatives!