Report Digital, a leading independent picture library, have launched their new website
They’ve put together an edit of around 5000 pictures to give a flavour of what they’re about . The site is constantly updated with new pictures as they follow events such as the G20 protests John Harris at Report Digital said “I think we are helping to show that edited content is the future for picture libraries who do have something to say”
John Harris told Photo Archive News:
“whilst still keeping sensitive content and the main library search “client only”. The new pages allow us to present recent relevant pictures, themes and issues. In fact the site presents an unusual timeline from the currant crisis back to the demise of the post-war consensus in the late 1970’s and begining of the Thatcher period.
Our categories (education, health, social, environmental issues etc.) are another way into the content and I think the second and third effects of the inevitable juxtapositions are really rather thought provoking. As well as the updated and updating pages there are a few slideshows (a technology that has come a long way from the early days of frustration) including one on the 1980s “recession and resistance” and a related show on “the miners strike” as it is 25 years ago – perhaps not surprisingly both seem tohave had a renewed relevance. John Sturrock has contributed some of his classic black and white from that period which fits in really well.
We are going to experiment with more as issues develop. I think we are helping to show that edited content is the future for picture libraries who do have something to say, rather than those who drown everybody in cheap unedited crap- a marketing model that I suspect the protagonists will, if indeed they are not already, find increasingly unsustainable in the months and years ahead.