In 1997, photographs in Series 1: JMU Historic Photos, 1909-1985, were scanned by Special Collections staff using Index Color, which resulted in a drop in image quality. Subsequently, the photographs in Series 2: JMU Historic Photos, 1985-ca.2000 were also scanned. In the early 2000s, the images were made available as a digital collection online, as the JMU Historic Photographs. In 2018, Digital Collections staff scanned all of the photographs as high resolution TIFFs, and also created JPEGs.

In 1994, Dr. John Woody, professor in the School of Arts Media and Design, instigated a project to scan photographs described as "current to the university" onto CDs, with the intention of making them available for purchase at the Center for Instructive Technology for anyone interested in using JMU photographs for presentations. Many of the photographs originated from the JMU Photography Services' 35mm slide collection, or were taken by Craig Baugher. A second CD included images of east campus buildings and student activities. These cds were noted as being held in Special Collections in an early online version of the digital photograph collection. However, these cds were not found in 2019, at the time of processing.

JMU Libraries staff is actively migrating the historic photos collection to a new platform which will replace the current historic photograph webpages by Summer 2027. To request high resolution reproductions of the historic photographs, contact library-special@jmu.edu.