Kind of have fallen behind on progress posts, but that does not mean there has been no progress. On the contrary, we continue to grow the various databases, and have others started that will be of immense utility when unveiled.
First, the basic photographers database ended January with 67,337 Photographer records — that is an increase of more than two thousand records over our last progress report. And the photograph database grew to 850 images, more than double the 410 reported three months ago. Still, we are only adding a couple hundred images a month — which means it could take decades to enter our complete collection. So two strategies have been adopted to speed things up.
It seems that photographs with identified subjects are more popular than those that only identify the photographer, so for a while we will be culling out only those images for which the subject is known, for addition to the database. Of course if the photographer is shown on the card, we still include those, so we are growing the photographer list at the same time. As it happens, this approach also snags more dated photos than random selection, so that aspect of the project is also advanced.
Next, I’ve begun to program a very simple database just for stereoviews, which will have titles and publishers/photographers, but little else. I’ll see how many of those I can get done per day without too severely impacting work on the other databases, and if it works out will add that listing online in the coming months.
Must admit I’m still neglecting the artists database, but there has been little interest expressed in that from subscribers, so it is back-burner for now.
All of the Pennsylvania photographers from 1862-66 tax records have been added to the database, I’m still finding images of their imprints to add to the eBook version, so that is still growing. I’ve begun working on Michigan tax records in the mean-time.
