Tours on Historypin

The "Tours" function, one of neatest features of Historypin, overlays historical photographs onto Google Earth imaging and allows the user to easily fade between then and now. This example is from the Beatlemania tour.

Use of Tags on Historypin

This Historypin example of a school in Lousiville, KY shows how tags are commonly used to describe photographs and provide subject access beyond location and date. Though tags cannot be edited by the casual visitor, notice the "Suggest more accurate details" option provided. Unlike the description, tags are searchable.

Elements of Photograph Description

Brian Stewart's paper suggests the use of "aboutness" or iconology in photograph description. This table is a mash-up of Shatford's and Panofsky's theories of photograph description and indexing (Stewart, 301) and puts "aboutness" in the context of the more traditional descriptive elements. 

Sample Local Historical Photograph

Photograph hosted by Champaign County Genealogical Society, and located in the Local History Photographs Collection in the Champaign County Historical Archives of The Urbana Free Library.