Few people do not know who the Associated Press (AP) is. When looking through every major newspaper in the USA, one will easily find at least one article taken from AP sources. These same articles will almost inevitably have attached photographs that since their inception have made the AP synonymous with news photography in America and around the world. Just think of the major headline news stories of the past few decades and the photos we associate with them: the Oklahoma City bombing, the eruption of Mount St Helen, the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, the D‐Day Victory, and so on. These photos now have been digitized with the AccuNet/AP Photo Archive.
The Photo Archive is a commercial joint venture between the AP and AccuWeather, Inc., the latter responsible for design, hosting, and technical maintenance. The archive contains current photos as well as a large selection from their 50‐million image print and negative library. In total, they advertise that the web site holds over 400,000 photographic images, the earliest of which is an 1844 photo of Abraham Lincoln. Added to this are approximately 800 more images per day, most added within minutes of a breaking news story. These new images will remain in the archive for at least one year; but, “specially trained indexers” determine which of the best 200 images of the 800 should remain for all time. The Photo Archive was created for two purposes: to preserve AP photos in an electronic format and to distribute these images copyright‐free for educational purposes. The Photo Archive is available on a subscription basis with different prices for elementary, high school, college, and general libraries.
The Photo Archive is only available on the World Wide Web. Therefore, to access the site, one must have access to the Internet with a graphical browser. AccuNet recommends Netscape 3.0 or higher for the Javascript enabled on the Web site. Upon subscribing, one will be assigned a user name and password for each site license, with a different user name and password necessary for every station where the archive will be made available.
The first page of the archive is a montage of memorable photos from recent and past history. The bottom of the screen displays the options. Choosing “Enter the Site” provides a summary on the site with a link to a form for more information. The “Sample Search” page offers a detailed overview as to how to search for an image and how to manipulate it when one finds a desired item. The “Instructions” page has more detailed search commands, explaining how to use quotes, how to search by keyword in the different fields, and how to use boolean operators. These last two pages are available in a .PDF format which one can download and refer to later using Adobe Acrobat Reader. The directions are very easy to understand and thus make the site user friendly.
The search engine is relatively easy to use ‐ when you read the directions beforehand, a task that I think necessary to clarify a few points. For instance, using Netscape’s “forward” and “back” buttons will cause the site to malfunction. The designers recommend using their links to move back and forth between pages. The search engine allows you to type in your keywords and hit “display.” You have the options of choosing a variety of fields: who, what, when, and where not all of which have to be filled out. “Who” searches individual images primarily, but inputting an individual’s name in the “what” field will do a broader search. By specifying date parameters, you must specify the year, as 1/2/94 will bring up 1894 images as well as 1994 ones. Perhaps one of the most ingenious search terms for date is that of “today” or “yesterday.” By typing these words in, you can search for the newest pictures that were added since the previous day. While this also works by typing in the day of the week within seven days prior (“Monday,” “Tuesday,” etc.), doing so beyond a week requires an actual typed date.
You have options of how you want your results presented. The default option is called “mixed” and gives you an index list with the photos on the left accompanied by brief information beside it. The “3 × 4” option allows you to view a page of thumbnail images with captions. In either case, by clicking on the image, you see a full‐sized photo accompanied by a caption and other indexing terminology useless for most users. I performed a photo search of Princess Diana’s funeral in full document mode to display a count first (I received 5,013 images). I then instructed it to produce the results in thumbnail format (“3 × 4”).
One of the neatest advantages to this web site is that you can put your images into a “lightbox.” This is a new browser window that automatically saves your stored images, up to 20 per lightbox. I randomly put three images in the lightbox. To view them afterward, just click on “view lightbox.” Once you are in the lightbox, you can delete images or rearrange them differently. By using the lightbox, you can present to audiences a series of images that easily make for an entertaining and innovative educational experience. And because the lightbox is in a different browser window, you can leave the AP web site and show other web sites related to your topic, yet still relate back to the lightbox of photos and show larger images from those thumbnails. It is important to note, however, that the lightbox does not actually save these images but rather stores the URL addresses to view the image in a larger format. This, then, brings up a few problems despite this wonderful innovation.
For instance, to use the AP Photo Archive properly, you must be linked directly to the Internet and not be dialing into a server. If you lose your dial‐in connection, you cannot show the larger images. Also, for educational purposes, instructors or lecturers should theoretically be able to prepare for a presentation by searching the archive beforehand, then save the lightbox of images for presentation to a class. But this cannot be done, as one cannot save the lightbox to a hard drive or floppy disk. However, savvy web users can easily steal or copy and paste images from the AP Photo Archive as the images are in typical .JPG format. This procedure could circumvent the problem but defeats the whole purpose of having a subscription‐based photo archive and causes problems with copyright. None of these individual photos are noted as being copyrighted. It is possible for these digitized photos to be watermarked or given a copyright notice as part of the graphic image when downloaded or copied, a technique being used by other digitized projects. This is an issue both the AP and AccuNet should take into consideration.
Another technical problem I encountered was that you can search for audio/video and graphics; but I could not get either option to produce any results. This could be a minor problem with my searching. Some people may also be annoyed by the myriad number of browser windows that keep opening when you perform different searches and use the lightbox.
Because the archive is geared toward educational institutions and the images can be viewed and shown copyright‐free, the AP Photo Archive is a wonderful complement to any electronic or Internet‐based database. Having it housed in any library or learning resource center, with or without distance‐connection possible, makes sense. The archive undoubtedly makes for an enhanced learning experience. However, if the AP Photo Archive is to be used as a resource for students and instructors to copy and use images for class presentations, it does not follow through. The lightbox has potential but should be redesigned. After all, to pay a subscription and not be able to use the photos for anything more than showing one time seems to have short‐changed the user.
