Advanced Digitization: Creating
Sustainable Collections
Class # 3 | February 4, 2008
Paper ,materials, Photographs,
Transparencies – Part 1
School of Information | UT @ Austin | Spring 2008
Digitization as Preservation (?)
Why?
•Increased accessibility
•Increased functionality
•Output capability to other media
•Systematic and purposeful collaboration
•Identification and selection of materials
•Increased capture capability
Because this is reality…(?)
Digitization as Preservation
Comparing to what other methods?
• Microfilm facsimile
• Printed facsimile
• Digital facsimile
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Digitization as Preservation
What would we need?
• Standards / Consensus
• Best practices / Guidelines
For:
• Sustainable framework (repositories)
• File formats / Scanners
• Digital Preservation / Metadata
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Characteristics / Perception
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Physical characteristics
Visual perception
Physical condition
Handling
Color representation
Tonal representation (dynamic range)
Detail representation
How much is enough?
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Best Practices 1
• Capture once at the highest possible/
required) level
• Create a faithful archival master
• Scan from 1st generation, if possible
• Avoid proprietary formats
• Gather appropriate metadata
• Use appropriate equipment
• Back up! Monitor!
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Best Practices 2
• Calibrating the scanning device
• Calibrating other processing components
to the scanner (imaging software, monitor)
• Control lighting conditions (consistent with
those of production and post-processing)
• Scan grayscale and color targets with
each image
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Best Practices 3
• Use a scanner for what it is meant to do
• Should I go with a higher bit depth?
• Save as _un-compressed_ TIFF with
embedded color profiles
• Create and maintain metadata for
resource discovery and sustainability
support
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Metadata
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Descriptive (DC, VRA, CDWA, MODS)
Technical (MIX, XMP, EXIF)
Preservation (PREMIS)
Wrapper for Descriptive, Administrative, and
Structural (METS)
• Think what is needed
• Deal with what you have in hands and go from
there
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Capture Options
• Bitonal
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One bit per pixel
Best suited for high-contrast documents
• Grayscale
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8 or 16 bits per pixel (shades of gray)
Best suited for continuous tone (b&w) documents (printed text with illustrations,
photographs)
• Color
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24 or 48 bits per pixel
Best suited for continuous tone (color) documents
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Project Management
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(try to) Plan ahead
Project scope – defining goals
Integration – taking all players into account
Budget – can we afford it?
Purchasing – (appropriate) equipment
Workflow – from capture to delivery
Staffing – hiring, training
Time management – deadlines, due dates - be
realistic…
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Project Management – Cont.
• Quality Control / Assurance – making sure
“it works”
• Communication – with clients, vendors,
staff members
• Risk Management – anticipate potential
failures and be prepared to address them
• Sustainability – ‘Exit Strategy’ - ensuring
on-going maintenance and preservation
(the Utopia example)
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Cost / Budgeting / Staffing
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In-house / out-source / rent?
Automation
How much does it cost? (equipment, staff)
Estimates….
Hiring staff, training, compensating…
Grant proposal sample
RFP (Request for Proposal) sample
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Workflow Management
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Accession / documentation / file naming
Shared (virtual) working area (SharePoint)
Assign X to Y
Processing (scanning / conversion)
Post-processing (QA/QC / derivatives)
De-accession
Archiving
• SharePoint – Virtual Workspace
• What is missing?
• DAM (Digital Assets Management)
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Workflow Sample 1
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Workflow Sample 2
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