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Digital Salford - the City’s photo album

Did you know Salford Local History Library hold a collection of some 70,000 images of the City? Many of these you will have seen in books, TV shows, post cards and used in various promotions for the library and museum. Comprised of four collections that would have been originally collected at branch libraries around the City, including: Eccles, Swinton and Worsley, these images were all brought together and housed at the local history library. The best way of seeing them all is to make an appointment at the library and to come and browse through. However, some 30,000 of them have been digitised and can be viewed remotely.

Originally funded by a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, the Digital Salford project started over ten years ago. The initial project ran for two years, with a project manager and some twenty volunteers scanning almost 9,000 images. There was a series of talks at libraries where people could tell us what images mattered the most to them, and if we had it we would scan it. However, after the project came to an end, we still had the equipment and many of the volunteers wanted to continue, so we carried on. Now fast forward ten years later and despite some set backs (Covid lockdowns, technical issues) we have almost half of the collection completed. We have had almost fifty volunteers working on the scanning (with some of the original volunteers still scanning!)

Using the database is easy. Go to our website at photos.salfordmuseum.com and search in the keyword search field in the top right corner. The kind of thing you can search for can be specific, depending on the streets and places you grew up, such as: Ellor Street, Cross Lane, Regent Road; but many general searches will work as well, like: Pubs, schools, whit walks, etc. Many people search for the School they went to, or the places they used to hang out – and if you don’t know what to look for, have a look in one of our selections in the ‘Browse’ Section. If the image you are looking for isn’t there, it’s possible we haven’t scanned it yet. Please feel free to pop in and let us know in the library.

Written by Duncan McCormick

Local History Librarian, Salford Museum & Art Gallery​