Old Shoe Boxes of Memories (so to speak)

Images courtesy of oldsalford.co.uk

I received an e-flyer the other day from The Photographers Gallery, London letting me know about a course they are running called "Investigating The Archive, photographic collections of London" for London readers and anyone interested the dates are 4th October-1st November details Here:http://www.photonet.org.uk/index.php?pvid=993 and Here:http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/ce2007/FFWO099U.html which got me thinking about what we've got here in Manchester/Salford. So here's a bit of a rundown,

1. Manchester City Council's Local Image collection. One of the better known, and largest.http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?categoryID=200062central/&documentID=326
2. North West Film Archive, primarily a moving image collection. However it does contain a collection of still images relating to Cinema's here in the North West. External shots, internal and also the workforce. http://www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk/
3. Chetham's Library. Not only the worlds oldest public library but also home to The Phelps Collection. Dating from the late 19th & early 20th century and featuring of 3000 glass plate negatives & lanten slides from both locally and further afield. http://www.chethams.org.uk/photographs.htm#photographs
4. Salford Local History Library. One of my favorite places to go and do research. Friendly and passionate staff there, they have over 50 000 mainly local images! http://www.salford.gov.uk/living/yourcom/salfordlife/aboutsalford/salfordlocalhistory/lhlibrary
5. Old Salford. This brings me to one of the many beauties of the digital age. It enables local enthusiasts the ability to archive and display images like never before. Hats off to www.oldsalford.co.uk
6. Aiden O'Rourke. I couldn't do a list of photographic collections around Manchester without mentioning Aiden O'Rourke. Photographing (&blogging) Greater Manchester & other worldwide cities since the early 90's, Aiden has a huge online collection at http://www.aidan.co.uk/index.php
7. David Rumsey Collection. Absolutely nothing to do with Manchester but I found it online while I was sat in Salford and anyway it's great (although you may have to do a bit of messing about to get in) so I'm including it! http://www.davidrumsey.com/collections/photography.html

So that's my little rundown. By no means complete I'm sure but it should give you something to look at over the weekend. If you know of anymore, let me know. I'm going to go and put that lot on the side bar as a links list. I do all this for you for free you know, ain't I lovely..............