The Drenthe Press Office Melissen is transferring the complete collection of negatives to the Drents Archief in Assen. It concerns more than half a million press photos and photos for agricultural magazines from the period from about 1985 to 2007.
The largest part relates to Drenthe. Curator Mark Goslinga of the Drents Archief is very enthusiastic about the collection. ‘It concerns unique historical images about numerous facets of the history of Drenthe over the past decades. Persburo Melissen also transfers all copyrights; this way the public can use the photos without restriction and free of charge. Incidentally, given the size of the collection, it will be a job of many years to scan and describe the negatives in order to eventually make them accessible via the internet.’
Media
For decades Persburo Melissen supplied photos to the Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, the Drents Groninger Pers, Boompers, the Telegraaf, the Algemeen Dagblad and ANP. In addition, they provided several national agricultural weekly magazines with photos. Jacob Melissen has always photographed himself, while his wife Warna Speelman was the manager of the company. Over the years they have employed several other photographers, such as Peter Kuiper, Tonnie Veenstra, Peter Wassing, Wilbert Bijzitter, Remco Veurink and Jan Bouwman.