About SEPIA

Proposal SEPIA I

Proposal SEPIA II

SEPIA partners

About this website

Please note that the SEPIA project ended November 2003. Information about the programme and the outcome of the project can be found on this website, but the site will not be updated.

SEPIA (Safeguarding European Photographic Images for Access) is a EU-funded project focusing on preservation of photographic materials. On this website you will find information about :

• SEPIA publications: SEPIA reports, articles and recommendations
• research: 'scanning equipment and handling procedures', 'preservation aspects of digitisation', 'ethics of digitisation' and 'descriptive models for photographic materials'
• news and events: containing announcements and press releases about the latest SEPIA news and a calendar of events.
• Links & Literature contains reports, articles and references to relevant resources
• 'To Have and To Hold' offers some guidance in finding information about the long-term preservation of all kind of photographic materials. It contains an introduction to the history of photography, historical photographic processes, digitisation and preservation of photographic materials and list of relevant resources selected by SEPIA experts
• Six SEPIA partners have made a representative selection from their collections around the theme ‘Constructing Europe’. Each presentation shows how an aspect of modern society evolved in a particular country. Although developments were different in the various countries, the exhibition taken as a whole provides a sense of an emerging modern Europe.
• training: about SEPIA workshops, seminars and the national SEPIA training events
• orginal proposals for SEPIA I and SEPIA II
• SEPIA partners and associate partners: cooperating SEPIA institutions
• Changing Images, the role of photographis collections in a digital age.
  Presentations (papers and PowerPoints) of the closing SEPIA conference.

About SEPIA
Courtesy of Finnish Museum of Photography	Historical photographic collections are an essential part of the European cultural heritage both for their artistic as for their documentary value. Photographs speak a universal language, and as a record of past times appeal to a large audience. However, many of them are fragile and the preservation of the wide variety of photographic materials is a problem for all institutions. Digital imaging, offering new opportunities for access and care, is now widely explored for its role in management of photographic collections.
In 1999 the European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA) initiated a project aimed at the long-term preservation of all kind of photographic materials and defining the role of new technology in collection management. The project was set up explicitly to bring together representatives from different types of institutions that hold photographs: libraries, archives and museums, as well as from research institutes. This followed from a basic principle in the work of the ECPA, to create a platform to exchange ideas and experiences of preservation issues that break through the traditional division into sectors. The project was funded by the European Union under the Culture 2000 programme for one year.

The success of these activities encouraged the partners to formulate a follow-up program for another 3 years. This runs from 1 November 2000 until 31 October 2003 and is also subsidized by the Culture 2000 programme. More partners and associate partners have joined, so that the group now consists of 19 institutions in 11 countries.

SEPIA II has build on the experiences of the first year. Activities are again targeted at both the professional world and the general public. Training sessions, several expert meetings, exhibitions and public events have been organised in participating institutions, a website and introductory texts on photographic preservation have been published in several languages.