WAW000866 WALES (1946) [Unlocated]. View labelled "South Wales Electric D". The whereabouts of this site is presently unknown.

Hi Dylan,



This image illustrates one of the problems that archivists often encounter. In fact, it's the perfect case-study for the management of archival flowlines in complex, multi-partner projects.



The original Aerofilms Ltd Register entry for negative A866 reads "South Wales Electric D". We’ve no idea why the person at the company wrote this: perhaps it was to do with the commissioner who ordered the photography; or the staff member just filled in the wrong line in the ledger. “D” usually stands for ‘destroyed’, but clearly this negative still survives.



We always knew there would be location problems to resolve; for example, because of Aerofilms Ltd's poor record-keeping - but that problem-solving wouldn't be possible until a positive image could be studied. This can only happen once the digital surrogate from the conserved negative is passed to the Cataloguers, months down the line.



The item was scheduled as "Wales", the Conservation and Digitisation Teams did their stuff and the digital surrogate, along with the Register data, was looked at by the RCAHMW cataloguer. As the image couldn’t be located anywhere in Wales, it sits with RCAHMW and goes onto the BfA website in the Unlocated gallery until such time as it is identified.



With the correct location we can now start the process of un-picking Aerofilms Ltd’s error.



If you would be interested to learn more about the Conservation, Digitisation or Cataloguing processes just drop us a line via the Enquiries Form on the “contact us” page.



Yours, Katy

Britain from Above Cataloguing Team Leader