Zprávy památkové péče 2016, 76(1):98-106

Witness of the time of industrial development - The twice-saved Poldi Kladno plant photograph archive.

Petr Kliment, Michaela Zeinerová-Brachtlová

In 2005 the National Technical Museum Archive managed to obtain the oldest part of the Poldi Kladno photograph archive. It was saved for the first time during the so-called "normalization" period of Czechoslovakian history by employees who in defiance of an order to destroy the glass negatives hid them instead.
The photo archive of the Poldi Kladno plant is not only a unique document of industrial development in the Czech lands but it also shows the history of the medium up to the beginnings of digital technologies. The industrial era and the classic black and white photography era share the same period - the photographic materials available from factory production are a typical product of its time. The obtained collection parallels the development of technology with the evolution of steel production and is also a specific documentation of the possibilities and the role of photography in society.
The article describe the circumstances of the 2005 acquisition of the collection which was thanks to a former employee of the former Research Institute of the SONP (united steelworks) Kladno, later head of the metallurgy department of National Technical Museum. It is a uniquely comprehensive collection, there are around 10 000 preserved glass plates, several thousand plastic film base negatives and a number of paper positives created from 1896 up to the end of the millennium. An inventory created during the acquisition process (quoted in the main article) respects the structure and organization system of the creator - the Poldi metalworks. The archive is organized into separate units according to purpose and content of the pictures. Within these units the photographs are numbered on a chronological principle.
The article describe the continuing processing of the collection starting with the methods of preventive conservation through digitalization (using a digital camera) through description of the physical state of the pictures (description of the plate or the paper positive) to structured description of the content. The authors divide descriptive metadata into two main groups - physical descriptions of individual photographs created during conservation and digitalization and description of content done later based on digital positive pictures or in the case of negatives on conversions from digitalized negatives. Outside of the description structure of individual pictures the authors also propose a structure of authority records that will be connected to the records of individual pictures. This context information not only makes descriptions easier and prevents inaccuracies and errors but will first and foremost enable easier searching and organising of theme-based selections for different demographics.

Keywords: Poldi Kladno; historical photography; industrial monument; preservation and classification of photograph collection

Published: March 1, 2016  Show citation