Image Sources
Photographs and maps, plans and various Christmas cards and programmes were acquired from the following sources.

Proposed Regiment History
In 1991 an advert was placed in all relevant journals asking for information and photographs from former members of 42 Survey Engineer Regiment to which there was a strong response.  The photographs were loaned in order to be copied by the 42 Group unit photographer and the originals immediately returned. Donors provided the images under the proviso that they could be used in any way that would help in recording or publicising the history of Military Survey. The whereabouts of the negatives is not known.

Denison Barracks
The barracks was searched for photographs with historic content and a number were found particularly several boxes discovered under the lecture theatre, others saved from a skip when the Library moved location and in a room in the Officers’ Mess the vandalised remnants of the large 19 Squadron albums made by Mike Nolan for the unit’s 150th anniversary were discovered.

42 Survey Engineer Group Photo Albums
Alan Gordon and Dave Johnson were contracted to produce a photographic record of 42 Group and its predecessors and in the process acquired some more images. The end product was the four large format blue albums now in the RSMS library.  Small format photographic copies were made of these albums and given to key personnel in the project.  Alan Gordon used his copies to scan these small format photographs at high resolution for inclusion in this library. Should higher resolution images be need in the future scans should be taken directly from the larger format photographs in the RSMS original albums.

Other Albums
Photographs in various other albums held by the RSMS library such as the Sinai Expedition and 1 ASLS RE albums were also scanned and included in this library.

250th Anniversary of Military Survey
Photographs were also acquired for use with the 250th Anniversary Historical Display boards and the booklet produced by Dr Yolande Hodson and Alan Gordon but images obtained from the British Library and the Royal Collection have not been included in this library due to stringent copyright restrictions.

Military Survey Branch Website
Albie Field provided a disk containing all the images that he had used for the original Military Survey website that he produced before handing it over to Dave Johnson to become the Branch website.  Since then all relevant images provided to the webmaster have been added to this library as they were supplied to the website with the caveat that they could be used in any way to assist in recording Military Survey history.

Ranger Magazine and the Military Survey Branch Newsletter
Images were added to the library from articles submitted to both Ranger and the Branch newsletter.

SMS Course Photograph Project
The complete SMS course photograph project has been included as one of the main headings.

Attribution of Images
Where definitely known the source of an image has been included as the last item following a hyphen in the file name e.g. 13 Sqn HQ Barton Stacey 1980s – Collins is an image donated by Nick Collins. A file name ending in ‘- Album’ indicates that the original photograph is in an album held by the RSMS library. A list of the sources of imagery is in the administration folder and is entitled ‘Attribution of Photographs’.
File names of images whose source cannot be specifically identified do not end with a hyphen followed by an attribution although many will have been originally taken by a unit photographer. Attribution List

Formats and Size
All images were originally hardcopy photographs that over the last few years have been scanned and are now held as JPEGS with just a few as pdfs and Tiffs that are held in that format for technical reasons.  The majority are at 300dpi hence suitable for hardcopy reproduction with a few taken from websites at a low resolution of 72dpi.

Copyright Issues

Maps: There are a number of maps but mainly extracts from full sheets designed to show something specific e.g. the bottom corner of a sheet that showed the rare 19 Field Survey Regiment print note. Many of the maps were given by individuals who had saved a copy of a sheet on which they had worked. The copyright on maps is always an issue with DGC and so should either be ignored or addressed. However, the former Ranger editor’s experience is that  the latter route is likely to be fraught with bureaucracy. The other option is to remove all maps but this would detract from the completeness of the archive, after all, Military Survey made maps!

Photographs: All photographs donated by individuals were given on the basis that they could be used in whatever way possible to support the history of Military Survey hence there should be no problems with their use.
The sources of images taken from albums or saved from salvage etc are not often known but a few are from collections such as the Imperial War Museum and where the source is known are attributed as such. It is assumed that permission to use them was obtained along with the photographs.
For the photographs that may be from MOD sources e.g. equipment photographed by SMS photographer, it is suggested that copyright is ignored. This advice is based on the SMS Course Photograph cd that was sold to former military surveyors with the full knowledge and assistance of RSMS.