National Stereoscopic Association

The NSA Stereographic Resources Program provides lists, in the form of PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, and facsimiles of original lists, catalogs, etc.  URLs are also available to link to external resources made available to NSA.  The lists are organized in an order logical to the subject such as photographer’s original number, title, date, location, etc.  The lists are accompanied by an informed textual introduction, which includes basic background information about the photographer, their work, as well as relevant production notes of how the list was created and, if relevant, what criteria were used.  Illustrations are also provided when helpful. 

The lists are “read only” documents which are provided free of charge for downloading and self-printing under Creative Commons “Attribution-Non-Commercial—No Derivatives license.”  To encourage submissions from other researchers, the underlying data will not be available externally unless specifically permitted by the contributors.  The NSA Stereographic Resources Program rolls out new resources on an irregular basis, so please check the site periodically for new additions.

Links to external resources are included on a limited basis—usually when the resource is too large for direct inclusion here, or for various local restrictions.  Examples are Russell Norton’s illustrated list of Michael Burr’s comic genre views, Getty Museum stereos, and the Carleton Watkins website.  Not all URLs have been migrated for this new test site. But they will be added shortly.

Paula Fleming oversees this program.  As noted above, projects like this require the help of many volunteers.  Anyone who has an interest in “adopting” an existing list should contact Paula at britishstereos@hotmail.com  Adopting a list normally involves rekeying or somehow transferring the data to a text format that can be modified; receiving and evaluating suggested new or corrected data from researchers; overseeing and making these editorial changes; and amending introductory text as appropriate.  Proposals for new lists that meet the criteria noted above are also welcomed.  If you are interested in helping, please let us know. Your contributions are critical in making this exciting program a continuing success!

HOW TO SEARCH:

• Lists can be accessed via NAME, SUBJECT, or LOCATION based upon the list title. 
• To find a list there are two search options:
  • Click on the “Name”, “Subject,” or “Location” tab to see a drop-down list of all lists or options that are currently available.  Names are listed alphabetically, subjects by an assigned designation, and locations by geographic hierarchy (see below for more information).
  • OR
  • Enter a word (case-insensitive) under the Keyword field.  NOTE:  Entering a keyword does NOT search the text content of the list files; it searches the titles of the files. After we have evaluated this relaunch, we plan to implement a full text search. 

“MATCH ANY” and “MATCH ALL” options:

In making a search there are options to “match any” and “match all”.  These affect both the filter menus and the keyword field.  For example, if you select “Canada” from the Location menu, and enter “Treadwell” as a keyword, “Match any” will show all 56 items with “Treadwell” in the name or with a location of Canada.  But “match all” will only show the one item that has both a location of Canada and has “Treadwell” in the title.

RESET BUTTON:  This resets both the filters and the keyword field

ICONS:  An icon appears on the left of each item to indicate if it is a PDF or a link.

A count at the bottom of the list shows how many list files were found using the search that was entered.

SUBJECT SEARCH:

When helpful, subject categories have been assigned, e.g. “Genre”, or “Expositions”, or “Backlists”.  Not infrequently these are the subjects of a specific list.  “Artwork” relates to specific lists such as “Rogers Groups, Stereos of Sculpture”.  However, major publishers of stereos frequently included small sections listing artwork in a catalog that consists mostly of geographical listings. 

These entries have not been indexed here.  Full-text search will ultimately be of assistance but until then researchers should broaden their search criteria to perhaps a photographer’s or publisher’s name.

GEOGRAPHICAL SEARCH:

We have largely used a 19^th century breakdown of geographical areas which is helpful when dealing with photographs from that era.  As such, many are not current designations.  For easy reference, however, Hawaii and Washington, D.C. are included under North America:  United States.

This is a hierarchical organization starting with “worldwide”, which is subdivided into broad regions—Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America.  Thereunder by country, or state, and then city or very specific location.  Most areas of the world will not have lists, but it provides a useful organization that is easy to expand on.  If you would like a copy of the full geographic reference list, please contact Paula Fleming.

Geographic entries will indicate which areas are the subject of specific lists. Many photographers and publishers, however, included multiple geographic areas in their catalogs. Because of the high number of geographical areas covered by all of the lists, it was not possible to index at an item or category level.  These have NOT been sub-indexed.  Researchers need to broaden their initial search to potentially find relevant material.  This problem should be rectified when a full-text search is implemented. 

SUMMARY:

We hope that these lists will be useful to and look forward to your feedback so that we can improve these valuable resources.  Enjoy and happy researching!

List coordinator:  Paula Fleming at britishstereos@hotmail.com

Webmaster:  Greg Stumph

8/2/2025