Edinburgh Libraries get help with their old photographs

A public appeal by The City of Edinburgh Council for help identifying old photographs of Edinburgh has enjoyed an overwhelming response.

Edinburgh City Libraries hold a vast collection of archive material illustrating the city’s distant and recent past and every day their expert staff help members of the public to use the resources to explore their own personal history or to find out where their ancestors lived.

Now the service is appealing for amateur sleuths to help them make the collection even better by publicising dozens of mystery photographs. The appeal has already generated widespread media coverage, in both the local press and online via Flickr.

In addition, the quest was featured on STV’s The Hour programme yesterday, after which the appeal’s dedicated flickr page received more than 3,000 hits (compared to just under 200 the day before).

Councillor Deidre Brock, Culture and Leisure Convener, thanked everyone who has come forward with information about the photographs. She said: “Since we launched the appeal, we’ve been amazed by the response we’ve had. Already, three images have been positively identified, and we’ve got promising leads on several others. This campaign asks people to take a trip down memory lane and helps us build up our Edinburgh collection at the same time. Every positive lead we get will greatly enrich both our physical archive and the digital treasure trove that is Capital Collections, providing invaluable resources to be enjoyed by future generations to come.”

Watch Central Library’s Susan Varga on The Hour (scroll to 14:20).

The mystery photos can be found on the Tales of One City flickr photostream and also here…..

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649

The Edinburgh collection is housed in the Central Library on George IV Bridge. Opening hours: Mon-Thu 10am-8pm; Fridays 10am-5pm; Saturdays 9am-1pm.
Telephone 0131 242 8000