Monterey, CA–George Eastman House Director Dr. Anthony Bannon announced at the 6Sight conference in Monterey, CA that the photography museum has received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to create an archive of documentation on the material technologies of photography. The archive will be organized as an online wiki that will be edited by Eastman House but will be publicly accessible.

The wiki will include documentation on cameras, print materials, chemical processes, and other imaging devices and materials, as well as information on elements such as specific photographers’ signatures and stamps. Eastman House expects that in addition to serving as a repository for documentation, the wiki will facilitate the development of a classification scheme for imaging materials to be used by collectors and historians. The wiki will cover historically important technology developments from the invention of the medium to the present, and will build upon a collection of documentation provided by Kodak and Alexis Gerard, co-founder of Future Image, host of the 6Sight conference.

Eastman House expects the wiki to be in development for two years. Photo collector Manfred Heiting has contributed to the project by recruiting a group of more than 20 conservators, curators, and gallerists to develop the wiki. The process will be overseen by Grant Romer, Director of the Advanced Program in Photography Conservation at Eastman House. Eastman House will also establish a staff to maintain and edit the wiki when the development phase is completed and the wiki is made available to the public.

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