The Local History Room has an extensive collection of Albion area photographs. The Albion Historical Society transferred its archives to the Local History Room in 1997. Their collection includes many rare late 19th and early 20th century photographs of Albion families, businesses and industries, clubs and organizations, and other Albion area subjects. A variety of early 20th century postcards are included in this collection.
The Justin Glathart slide collection consists of over 2,000 slides of Albion area locations photographed over three decades, beginning in the 1950s. A grant from the Community Foundation funded the duplication of this wonderful collection. The generous loan of the original slides by the Glathart family for archiving makes it possible to loan the duplicates for educational purposes.
The Local History Room also has a growing digital photograph collection. We invite the public to loan photographs of Albion interest that can be scanned for this collection. If you have a photograph that you are willing to loan or donate, please notify us. One free digitized copy will be provided of each photograph loaned for reproduction.
Copies of photographs from the Local History Room collections may be obtained upon request. Fees for a scanned photograph are $3.00 for Albion District Library patrons and $5.00 for requests from outside our service area. This fee includes a high resolution (up to 1200 dpi) scan, digital copy on CD, and postage and handling. Low resolution images may be emailed but are poor quality not suitable for printing.
Written permission to publish is required. The Local History Room encourages use of our photograph collection for publications, school reports, and other creative projects. We request that documentation accompany all reproduction of these photographs.
Many of our photographs are from gift sources and are cataloged by donor. Please check with the Local History Room staff about proper credit for the photographs you wish to use.
Examples of documentation for Local History Room photographs:
Photograph(s) courtesy of Albion Historical Society Collection, Local History Room, Albion District Library, Albion, MI.
Photograph(s) reproduced from Justin Glathart Slide Collection, Local History Room, Albion District Library, Albion, MI.
Photograph(s) reproduced from the photograph collection of the Local History Room, Albion District Library, Albion, MI.
The Local History Room also has a high quality scanner available for supervised public use during Local History Room hours. Patrons may bring photographs or documents from home to digitize at no charge. A flash drive or blank CD-R should be brought to save scanned images. Blank CD-R discs are available at the library for $1.00 each.
No photographs with copyright restrictions
may be copied in the Local History Room.
Notice: We have experienced unauthorized, undocumented use of many of our photographs on the internet. We request of persons posting photographs that they have acquired from the Albion Historical Society Collection for other publication purposes or who have acquired our photographs through secondary sources to cease use of them on their internet sites pending formal written authorization from the Local History Room, at the risk of public exposure for unethical copyright use.