Kevin Koron, a member of the commission who also manages equipment for the SIUC Cinema and Photography department, said there may be a student internship offered in the department to help with the collection.

He said the intern’s main duties at the onset of the project will be copying photos.

Koron said there is already an abundance of historical photos in private collections in the area and that copying as many of these pictures as possible will be the first step in establishing the photo archives.

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He said the commission will hold photo drives next year to encourage people to bring in historic photographs from their own collections to be copied. He said as an incentive the city may offer a free print to the owner of any photo copied.

For people with larger collections, Koron said the city will make house calls with portable copying equipment.

He said the intern may eventually start taking photographs after a good base collection has been established through copying.

Koron said the internship would be for credit only students would not be paid for their work.

He said this may work out well financially for students, however, because it may be an inexpensive way to obtain credit.

The city will also benefit from the internship because they will not have to hire a professional photographer to do the copying work. Koron said this is the main reason the internship is being considered.

In the long run it benefits everybody, he said.

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Because copy work can become tedious, Koron said he hopes to find an intern who has an interest in the project beyond the copying.

I want to find someone who’s interested in history too, he said.

An intern with a natural curiosity about history might get more out of the position than other people, Koron said.

A former SIUC photographer said establishing the collection may not be as easy as it sounds.

Robert Stokes, who took pictures from SIUC from 1951 until 1983, said although there have been a lot of historic pictures taken over the years, many of them have disappeared because of lack of care.

Somewhere down the line these things just disappear, he said.

He said many of the photos in the University photo archives are gone because of theft or destruction.

Stokes said he has tried to establish a library similar to what Commission members want in other areas.

I tried a similar thing years ago in Union County, he said. But then the administration changed.

He said although the Union County library started well, its success withered when new county officials decided it was not worth the expense. Enthusiasm must be kept up, Stokes said, to keep a photo library up-to-date over time.

Koron said the University’s photo collection, along with the personal photos people have, will provide a good base for the collection.

That’s why I’m positive it’s going to go forward, he said.

Several details of the photo archives still need to be ironed out by the Preservation Commission.

The type and quantity of each photo to be cataloged, the storage location, the amount of credit interns will get and access privileges are still being studied by Commission and department members, Koron said. He presented a first draft of the project at a Commission meeting earlier this month for members to look over and comment on.

He said the collection will definitely be open to people trying to obtain pictures for educational presentations but complete access to the public is only a possibility because it might make management of the archives more difficult.

As the collection grows, more options will open up. Exhibits at the University Museum and even putting the photos in a computer data-base may be in the future of the photo archives, Koron said.

There’s a lot of different avenues we could go into, he said.

For now, Koron said the main focus is getting the project started.

It’s something that’s missing, he said.