The good news is that every single one of the historic photographs from the image archives of HistoryMiami -- formerly known as the Historical Museum of South Florida -- will one day be online for anyone to access. The bad news: That day might not come until you and I are actually part of the historical record, i.e. dead.
Of HistoryMiami's 1.1 million images depicting southeast Florida, the rest of the state, and the Caribbean,
only 10,000 of them have been digitized, according to archives manager Dawn Hugh.
"It's easy enough to scan the images, but
cataloging them is what takes time," she says. And with only two
employees currently dedicated to the task and new photographs constantly
coming in, it's anybody's guess when the entire collection will finally become available online.
Still, it's a work in progress. Things should speed up a great deal when HistoryMiami completes the revamp of its website this fall. Until then, history buffs can visit the HistoryMiami site to search the approximately 6,000 cataloged images.
