A unique collection of old photographs of Aberdeen Harbour is to be preserved for posterity in a Millennium project which will also put them on the Internet.
The archive of approximately 6,000 7"x5" glass plates dates from the 1880s to 1930s. They are to be digitised and stored by the University of Aberdeen's Special Libraries and Archives in a £28,000 project funded by Aberdeen Harbour Board as part of its Millennium celebrations.
The money was awarded to the University's Sixth Century Campaign which aims to raise £150 million over 10 years.
The photographs give a fascinating insight into a period of varying fortunes in the long history of the port. With the first recorded mention in 1136, Aberdeen is now a modern, world class port, handling 4 million tonnes of cargo annually.
The images are currently being identified by Eddie Aitken, the Board's Surveyor, in a massive task expected to take up to four months of his spare time.
"The development of a new maintenance building for the Board meant that we had to find another home for this historically important collection," explained Harbour Board General Manager, Barclay Braithwaite. "We decided that the preservation of the photographs was an appropriate project for our Millennium celebrations and awe wanted them to be available to as wide an audience as possible. The University and the Internet are providing the answers."
The photographs of the port were taken by harbour engineering staff as a record of port developments and operations in the days when it had its own darkroom. The collections also includes photographs of public buildings and other activities in Aberdeen.
The period included notable milestones in the history of the port – for example, the launch of the first steam trawler in 1883, introducing a new era for the fishing industry. Infrastructure developments in the 1880s-90s created the final shape of today's harbour and were the catalyst for increasing trade. World War One saw many Aberdeen vessels lost at sea and a drop in trade from which the port took around 20 years to recover.
Only when Eddie Aitken has completed his task will the collection give a full insight into an important half-a-century in the operation of the port.
The University will use its expertise to catalogue, digitise and then store the slides in an air conditioned archive and to manage the specially created website. Digitising the images means that the originals can remain archived without being handled constantly.
Dr Alan Knox, Manager of the University's Historic Collections, said: "We are delighted this collection has been entrusted to Aberdeen University. We have nationally recognised expertise in looking after some of the country's finest collections. This makes us ideally placed to preserve another part of Aberdeen's unique history.
"The digitisation of these images will not only ensure that they are made available to audiences across the world, but will preserve them for generations to enjoy."
The photographs will become the second largest collection in the University's archives, surpassed only by the 40,000 glass negatives from the internationally-renowned Victorian photographer, George Washington Wilson. There are 250,000 items in all in the Special Collections and Archives.
Following a trial period (www.abdn.ac.uk/library/harbour), the phased launch of the Aberdeen Harbour Board Collection on the Internet will begin later this year. It is expected to take up to 12 months to complete the process.
The public will be able to purchase prints by contacting the University and the fees will help maintain its photographic collections.