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The Courtauld Institute of Art

Description

The Courtauld's Conway Photographic Library includes almost a million images dating from the inception of photography to the present day. The digitisation, cataloging, conservation, and publication of these collections online to a public audience is part of the Lottery-funded Courtauld Connects project. The Digitisation Project is based in the Photographic Library in Somerset House. Volunteers can come in every day, once a week, once a month, or however often you would like. As a volunteer, you'll be trained by staff and other volunteers on all the processes that go into a digitisation project. We encourage volunteers to make the most of being able to access our archive: if you are interested in doing research, we have a blog that you can contribute to; we have spaces (on and offline) to stage small exhibitions; and we are always open to ideas such as running creative workshops or tours inspired by the collection. Highlights of the photographic collection include: • Extensive coverage of urban and rural architecture across the UK and Europe from 1200 to 2000 • 1850s prints of Istanbul by James Robertson (from a collection of c. 15,000 historic prints) • T E Lawrence’s photographs of Jeddah • The Macmillan archive of bomb damage across Europe following the second world war • 20th century social housing projects • Images taken by Anthony Kersting of sites in Iran, Iraq (including Kurdistan and the Yazidi people), Syria and Israel • The de Laszlo gift of over 20,000 of Paul Laib Negatives of over 20,000 glass plate negatives illustrating works by many of the major artists working in Britain including Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. The first step if you'd like to volunteer for us is to sign up for an interview. This is an informal opportunity to meet some of the team, find out more about the project, and for us to find out more about your skills and interests.