Photography in Swedish Memory Institutions : Convergence, Digitization, and the Difficulties of Defining Images

This study examines how photographic material has been classified and contextualized on the digitization platforms of the major Swedish memory institutions – the National Library of Sweden, the National Archives of Sweden, and the Nordic Museum. Combined with a series of interviews with digitization practitioners at these institutions, the paper examines the cultural-historical approach to defining the concept “photography” and classifying digitized photographs, as well as how photographic material is treated similarly to or differently from other kinds of material housed at these institutions. These results of this question are used to examine the likelihood that, driven by similarities in digitization practices, significant differences between Swedish libraries, archives, and museums are disappearing