Whoever suspected that museums' photography collections could be digitized and then discarded will change their mind after reading this groundbreaking book that brings together leading academics and curators. Anonymous and mostly uncatalogued photographs are restored with not only their biographies, but also a material future, as a key to a broader understanding of collecting history.

Dr Costanza Caraffa, Head of Photo Library, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max Planck Institute, Italy

With breadth of vision and depth of understanding, this editorial collaboration constitutes a critical addition to the self-reflexive literature on museum history and practice, at the same time enlarging the history of photography as a field of study and shifting it onto a robust institutional plane.

Joan M. Schwartz, Professor, History of Photography, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada

This book is a compilation of essays about collecting and curatorial practices unique to photographic collections. The editors argue that issues related to the technical, ephemeral, and serial qualities of photographs, along with the medium's relatively short history, have led to their marginalization within museums, yet these collections are 'increasingly being understood as knowledge-objects in their own right.' An introductory chapter provides a theoretical and historical overview of the place of photographic collections in the museum setting. Developed as part of an international conference held in Leicester, England, and organized into five topical sections, the essays explore several notable photographic collections, the information value of photographs, the history of collecting photographs, and curatorial practices for photograph collections. Essays detailing how portrait photography solidified Charles Darwin's professional network and aided his work on evolution, examining photographs documenting revolution in Cuba of the 1950s and 1960s, and creating images of the Maori people of New Zealand illustrate the breath of this volume. It will be of particular interest to students of photographic history and museum professionals. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate, research, and professional collections.

P. A. Mohr, independent scholar, CHOICE