A View to Hugh

The University of North Carolina library has launched a new web log entitled “A View to Hugh.” The objective of the blog is to keep the public informed about progress being made in sorting and cataloguing the tremendous number of negatives and slides amassed by Hugh Morton in his 70 years of picture taking, and to enlist help from his friends in identifying the people and events captured by Hugh’s lens.

Bob Anthony and Stephen Fletcher from the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina carried four truck loads of negatives and films from Hugh Morton’s home in the spring of 2006. Now they are saddled with the task of preserving and cataloguing hundreds of thousands of images so that the amazing collection can be made available to the people of North Carolina.

“We hope the blog will generate interest in the collection and help us get some input,” said Fletcher. “We want the public to see how photographic archives are not these dry academic things that just sit out there, but they can be valuable, useful and informative reference points in our daily lives.”

As Photographic Archivist for the North Carolina Collection, Fletcher is charged with investigating how digital technologies and scanning might be used as a means of organizing and sorting the collection.

“In the old days the best tool we had for this task was a light table,” he said. “With an estimated 200 thousand images to catalogue, it would take years to even make a dent in the organizing process that way.”

Elizabeth Hull was brought on in September as Assistant Photographic Archivist to help Fletcher tackle the immense job of cataloguing the Morton Collection. Her salary was funded by the Ellice & Rosa McDonald Foundation of Wilmington, Delaware. In addition, a special appropriation of $150 thousand from the North Carolina General Assembly is being used to purchase special equipment needed to process the miles of cellulose and silver halide.

Hull, 31, grew up in Boone where her father, Chip Arnold, taught in the Appalachian State University Department of English. She earned her undergraduate degree in archeology from ASU. It was when she took a job in the special collection library at Duke University that she realized there was a way she could put her archeologist’s passion for digging through time to work without having to spend her days in a hot, sweaty desert to do so. Armed with a Masters in Public History from UNC and a talent for photography, Elizabeth applied to work with Morton’s negatives.

From her office on the first floor of Wilson Library, Hull was led to the basement of the library where the four van loads of Morton’s negatives are stored.

“Just the initial shock of what I signed up for was pretty intimidating,” said Hull. “That first introduction to the size, scope and condition of it was overwhelming, but now that I have my hands on it, it seems more manageable.”

New entries on the blog are contributed by both Fletcher and Hull at a rate of about two postings per week. The personalities of the two archivists are beginning to reveal themselves as the blog unfolds, with Hugh Morton’s towering persona overshadowing all.

Guests to the site are invited to add their comments as they go. The interactive nature of the medium is clearly contributing to the cataloguing process as Morton’s friends and relatives chime in with bits and pieces of trivia about photographs that the bloggers have posted for feedback.

To see the blog for yourself, visit the University of North Carolina library on-line at http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/morton/.

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