Vail Balloon Prints

DOME COLLECTIONS

Institute Archives & Special Collections

COLLECTION

Vail Balloon Prints

Content

The collection is replete with wonderful images providing visual documentation of man's vision of flying vehicles and human flight.  Images range from the fanciful, as shown above, to depictions of real events, such as the balloon sent up by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783 or later balloon flights by others (successful as well as unsuccessful).  Articles and clippings recount the history of man's efforts to fly over the last three centuries, relating or commenting on individual efforts - some celebratory and other detailing the fatal results of failures.

Size

1200 items

Age

1780-1930s

Source

Archives and Special Collections

Rights

Most out of copyright, MIT Libraries property rights (gift to MIT, need to do more background research)

Anticipated Audience

Showpiece for potential donors; scholars and afficianados of the history of aeronautics

Benefits

On-line access; project acts as scanning pilot; will possibly help us develop a virtual exhibit template

Format Risk

minimal

Format

need to scan to TIFFs with JPEG derivatives

Metadata

Also, due to the lack of knowledge about these prints, visual representation of them via the Web is critical to their access and may help with their identification.  Metadata is key to increasing their accessibility as it will describe each item, identify what it is and what it's about with details such as subject matter, size, age, color, origins---in short supplying each item in the collection with as much searchable data as possible.

Funding

Donor

Other Comments

This project is in progress, with no determination as to where the images will reside.