At first, we only kept and digitalized the family photographs. But after some consideration and the need of information. We realized that the cover of family albums could also provide necessary information. They often show the camera and film models that were being advertised through the albums given by the photo lab to customers. From that, at least we could know what type of camera and film that were popular at that time. Other than that, they also often portray photographs—mostly taken in the studio—to advertise what the service could do or rather just to offer beautiful images with posed models or sometimes (decorative) objects. Some other album covers were just showing the brand of the photo lab.

This is what then made us decide to scan these covers, while the previous has already been thrown away. These are just a few samples of the albums, most of them that we have already scanned are those mini albums usually containing one roll of printed images.