Writing as someone who specializes in Digital and Traditional/analogue
Imaging it seems that unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation out
there around this whole issue (which has been my first hand experience among
the museum community).

First, when digitizing Artefacts, Photographs, sound/film recording or
documents you need to decide why you are doing it. This determines at what
level you are going to be working.

Are you merely producing easily accessible records for convenience - like
the old Polaroids stapled to the front of a record in a filing cabinet or
are you copying these items so they may be accessed rather than the original
item themselves - e.g. the public/researchers can access scans of
photographs rather than the originals, or digital images of artefacts rather
than the originals. And if this is the case, are the only for simple
reference, or are they going to be suitable for detailed research, or
publication etc.

There is a fairly wide range of options between these two ends of the
spectrum. So you need to be clear what your aims and objectives are, because
that will dictate the technical side.

Once you have decided on that, you need to produce for yourself a set of
standards (and there are various standards being developed - the Smithsonian
ones listed were a good place to start also documents available via IPI such
as Guides to Quality in Visual Resource Imaging
http://www.rlg.org/visguides/

and

Digital Imaging for Photographic Collections: Foundations for Technical
Standards
http://www.rit.edu/~661www1/sub_pages/digibook.pdf
(this is actually a pretty good primer)

On the technical side, there are a whole range of issues. If you are just
regarding it as a sort of "digital polaroid" setup, you can probably get
away with something pretty simple/low end.

But if you want to be able to do things like have researchers work with
digital images of artefacts, provide printable digital files of photographs
suitable for publication or broadcast quality sound recordings, then you
will need to invest some time, effort and money.

Regarding equipment, it's still changing all the time - basically for the
better, but right now - virtually any good current computer PC or MAC will
be good enough (if your kids/interns can play graphic intensive computer
games on it, it will do!) fast chip/s, lots of RAM (up to 1GB is a good
start), lots of HD space for all those files. The make isn't that
important - better to deal with your current provider if you are getting
good service.

Sorry to disillusion you Jenny, but the Sony Mavica CD300 isn't hi-end :-)
(something like the Nikon D1x is) - it will do if you are using it as you
used to use a Polaroid camera (and give you obvious extra benefits), but it
won't be adequate for higher end publication or reference.

As for scanners mentioned, there are various current models at the slightly
higher end desktop range that will do a good job (bear in mind if you need
to scan larger photographic transparencies or negatives as well as documents
or prints you will need a scanner that will do this) such as Epson 1680 Pro
or the Epson Expression 1640 series or Microtek Artixscan 1800f etc. And if
you are scanning slides, then you probably want to start with something at
least on the level of the Nikon Coolscan 4000.

Again, at the higher end of this you will need to educate yourself about
colour management standards, digital imaging/corrections, metadata standards
and so on.

As well as you records/collections management software like PastPerfect, you
might also need image library software as well as various imaging programmes
if you are going to be doing and work with the image/document files
themselves. There are also different routes you can follow for digitizing
documents - again, depending on what you want as your end result.

As for storage - If you have some nice big hard drives on your box you can
start with that. Backup (I wouldn't touch zip disks these days with a barge
pole...! and you are very quickly going to run out of capacity - we had
several hundred GB of archived image files, growing all the time) - either
run back-ups to high quality gold CD's (or possibly DVD) or run an external
hard drive and run as back-up. Also, personally, if I were going to be
running into big GB's of storage, I'd look at a RAID array as being an
option. (personally, I still tend to have an ultimate back-up of high
quality gold CD's on work).

That's enough for now - there is plenty more.

email me of list if you have any specific questions and I will see if I can
help (you can always contract me out... :-)  )

tim





> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of Jenny Benjamin
> Sent: Monday, April 14, 2003 10:57 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Digitizing and computerizing collections
>
>
> The Museum of Vision is also digitizing its collection (artifats, archives
> and rare books).  The equipment we use:
> Sony Mavica CD300 (digital camera that stores directly to CD-ROM)
> UMAX Power Look Scanner
> RE:Discovery Software (both the collections and archives modules)
>
> I highly recommend the camera and the scanner.  They do a great
> job and were
> relatively cheap for higher-end equipment.  The bonus with the scanner is
> that I can create high-resolution images for our exhibit posters
> without any
> difficulty.  Re:Discovery has also served our needs.  In my last
> position I
> used CuadraSTAR and find both software packages to be adequate
> although not
> stellar (this is mostly because I find their interfaces to be
> difficult and
> not at all intuitive).
>
> We're practically neighbors, so give me a buzz if you want to get all the
> gory details about our process!
>
> -Jenny
>
> --
> Jenny E. Benjamin, MA
> Director, Museum of Vision
> EyeCare America
> (415) 561-8502
> (415) 561-8533 FAX
> [log in to unmask]
> www.museumofvision.org
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of Ruth Lang
> Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 3:10 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Digitizing and computerizing collections
>
>
> I work for the Fresno Historical Society which administers the Kearney
> Mansion Museum (valleyhistory.org).  We are currently looking at
> funding to
> digitize and computerize our archival collection.  What computer equipment
> do
> other organizations on this list use?  What do you like or
> dislike about the
> equipment? We are looking at Dell models. What collection software do you
> recommend?  We have looked at Past Perfect.  How does that compare with
> other
> programs?  We have also looked into the Epson Expression 1640XL
> Graphic Arts
> scanner.
>
> Any help would be most appreciated!
>
> Ruth Lang
> Archival Assistant
> Fresno Historical Society
> 7160 W. Kearney Blvd.
> Fresno, CA 93706
> 559.441.0862
>
> =========================================================
> Important Subscriber Information:
>
> The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
> http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed
> information about the listserv commands by sending a one line
> e-mail message
> to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should
> read "help"
> (without the quotes).
>
> If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
> [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should
> read "Signoff
> Museum-L" (without the quotes).
>
> =========================================================
> Important Subscriber Information:
>
> The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed
information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message
to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help"
(without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
[log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff
Museum-L" (without the quotes).

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).