A Study of the Collections Management Policies and Practices of Retrato: the Photo Archive of the Filipinas Heritage Library

Abstract

A picture is worth a thousand words, what better way to showcase Filipino history and culture than through the thousands of photographs taken by countless Filipinos since the first camera arrived in our country. Imagine if someone took the time and effort to compile all these photographs, such collection can tell so much about us as a people, our story, our values, and our culture. If there is an existing collection that represents this ideal, it is the photographic collection of Retrato, the photo archive division of the Filipinas Heritage Library. Retrato has a collection of over 33,000 Philippine photographs. Retrato's mission is to bring these images to the hearts of the Filipino People and to do this; Retrato classifies, preserves and digitizes its photo collection making it available in the internet through its website http://www.retrato.com.ph. One underlying factor in determining if Retrato can achieve its objective is to review its Collections Management policies and practices. These are set rules, regulations and procedures that concern activities that affect a libraries collection. Specifically these activities are Acquisition, Classification, Preservation, Storage and Display. This study documents and evaluates the Collections Management policies and practices of Retrato. Documentation is done through interviews with the management of Retrato and its users, analysis of the library's standard operating procedures and observation of the actual processes being done in the library. Evaluation is based on a framework whose premise is that for collections management policies to be effective, it must accomplish two things. First, is that every policy must be in line with the mission of the organization. A mission is the overall objective an organization aims to achieve; thus, every policy no matter how small, must contribute to achieving this goal. The second and more important is that collections management policies should be in line with the roles of a library as a custodian of cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is a term used to describe all testaments of the past and the present. This includes books, photographs, artifacts, material culture and even the intangible such as ideologies. The collection of a library is naturally a treasure trove of cultural heritage representing the country and its people. The study finds that in general, most of Retrato "s Collections Management policies and practices are in line with both its mission and vision and the roles of a library as custodian of cultural heritage. It is only the acquisition policies that Retrato needs to review, because policies in this area neither contribute to the organization's mission nor is not aligned with the responsibilities of a library as a custodian of cultural heritage.