Canadians?

[Bill A]

I think there is some institutional "angst" with corrections. They rely on the existing descriptions in the documentation and resist making changes. Combined with the recent cutbacks and economies being forced on government services, corrections are certainly not near the top of their to do list.

[edstorey]

Bill, absolutely you are correct. Of course in the historical business were facts are key, the uncorrected errors keep getting repeated as fact. When the errors are with an archive, this compounds the problem.

ED

[servicepub]

Put it down to the cuts in staff at LAC over the past 2 years. I understand that 28 positions were cut and the LAC was a small organization to start with.

Photo captions at LAC are derived in two manners. Where possible, the original caption material, provided by the photographer and written in long-hand, are used as the basis. Often this is limited to location, date and name of photographer. Sometimes the subject(s) is identified but this was mostly the photos taken for PR purposes and sent back to Canadian newspapers.

The second method is the more problematic one. When a researcher finds a negative that he wants copies and that does not already have a 'PA' number (or 'e' number for electronic copies) then the process includes a caption sheet which must be filled out by the researcher.

In my case I just got too busy to fully identify these (and I was ordering dozens at a time) so would write a one-word caption. Do a search on the LAC photo database for "motorcycle" and you will see what I mean as many photos will appear with just that one-word caption (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/l...mediaType=1200). Once you provide this the negative is printed, allotted a 'PA' number and the caption entered into the database.

Clive