[MassHistPres] Displaying historic building photos online

[Lee Wright]

Publicizing projects and opportunities is obviously an important part of
what many of us do to secure greater community support for historic
preservation.
 
We at the Society have recently added a slideshow of 73 old photos of
buildings that stand or once stood in our downtown:
http://www.historicmarlborough.org/Historic_Photos.html.  
 
These were part of a "Before and After" series of photos that covered our
entire downtown and that was displayed at a large community event in
downtown Marlborough a couple of weeks ago.
 
The online slideshow, which was easy to put in place using free software and
services, has many advantages, but it doesn't have as many features as we
would like.
 
Interested in learning how your organization is displaying historic building
photos online.
 
Here's a quick summary of the pros and cons of our method, along with my
wish list for an ideal system:
 
- Pros
= Free, with photos hosted on Flickr and displayed on our site using
PictoBrowser. (Links and more details here:
http://www.historicmarlborough.org/Creating_this_site.html.)
= Changes to our photostream on Flickr, including adding new photos, show up
in the slideshow automatically.
= Titles and detailed notes are displayed.
= The slideshow loads fast, and has a clean UI that is easy to use.
= Effectively unlimited in terms of the number of photos that this approach
can handle.
 
- Cons
= Some of the best aspects of Flickr don't make the transition, including
commenting and geotagging.  (Would like to be able to navigate photos via a
map, e.g.)
= Would like to have more control over sorting, including having sets of
photos displayed (e.g., Main Street, Transportation, the French Hill
neighborhood).
 
- Ideal system
= Free or low cost; easy to put in place
= Displayed on our site with access to all of the functionality below on our
site; the photos themselves could be hosted anywhere
= Ability for anyone anywhere to add photos, comment on photos, and add tags
and geotags without onerous registration
= Ability to moderate photos and comments, either before or after posting
= Ability to block users
= Ability to navigate photos through a map
= Ability to navigate photos through a timeline based on date of photo
= Ability to group photos and sort photos (including by searching titles,
notes, comments, and tags)
 
Comment: For those of you familiar with Flickr, my wish list looks something
like Flickr for our own site (i.e., many of Flickr's tools and functions on
our own site).  Our current photostream uses the account of our photo
archivist; moving to our Society's group on Flickr will give us the
advantage of letting anyone add photos, and as administrators, we can
moderate additions.  We get most of the other functions on the wish list,
too, but accessing these features must be done from Flickr.  I'm interested
in alternatives that would enable users to easily do most or all of these
things without leaving our site.
 
 
My question for you: What tools do you use to display photos online?
 
Thanks for sharing your insights--
 
Lee
 
The Marlborough Historical Society Board of Trustees
The Marlborough Historical Commission
 
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Lee Wright  |  lee at historicmarlborough.org  |  +1 469 233 7712