Pildikogud

Pildikogud are organized repositories of visual media, including photographs, drawings, prints, and other graphic materials. They are maintained by libraries, archives, museums, universities, media organizations, and private collectors, and can exist as physical holdings, digital repositories, or hybrids. In digital pildikogud, each item has a metadata record that links to the image file and describes its origins, content, and access terms.

Metadata commonly follows standards such as Dublin Core or IPTC, and may include technical data from EXIF/XMP, as well as subject headings, creators, dates, places, and rights information. Records are usually browsable and searchable by keywords, dates, locations, collections, or photographers, and may offer different access levels depending on rights and licensing.

Digitization and management practices aim to preserve content and improve usability, through format migration, color management, metadata normalization, and provenance documentation. Pildikogud support research, journalism, education, and cultural memory by enabling discovery, comparative analysis, and reuse of visual material.

Challenges include incomplete or inconsistent metadata, copyright restrictions, and the ongoing need for digital preservation strategies. The term pildikogu denotes a picture collection, and pildikogud are its plural form; in practice these collections appear in national archives, libraries, museums, universities, and public portals, often linking to broader cultural heritage ecosystems.

See also image archives, digital libraries, Wikimedia Commons, photo catalogs.