Margaret-

We've are a new museum opening in the winter of 1999 and are just finishing
a large digitizing process for our objects and photographs for design
development of 5 new exhibits.  We scanned slides with a Kodak sprint
scanner and Adopbe Photoshop and flatbed scanned all printed artifacts and
texts.  I coordinated the digital photographing of objects and we used
Kodak Photoenhancer.  Although digital cameras are not "ideal" for
photographing objects, we got remarkably good results.  The technical
information for each document was listed in an accompanying artifact
document, which coordinated with the interpretive outlines and text.  We
are now planning to use the artifact documents to be the basis of our
registration system by stripping out fields and hoping to dump these into
one of the automated collections system, probably Embark.  Digital
photography will now be one of the steps in registration, so our developers
and designers can have access to this information and dimensions as soon as
the objects are entered into the system.  I found using the technology
remarkably easy (because of course we had good technical people loading the
programs and all we had to do was use it)  If you would like more
information on the project as a whole.  Contact Cindy Catella here at our
office ([log in to unmask]).  She coordinated this effort and I'm sure
would be happy to answer any of your questions.  But you may want to talk
with her relatively soon.  She is getting married and leaving us soon for
greener pastures.

Lynn Norris
Exploris
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615 Willard Place
Raleigh, NC 27603
(919)834-4040
(919)834-3516 faxAt 12:36 AM 4/10/97 -0400, you wrote:
>A consortium of museums in Philadelphia is creating a combined collections
>database.  We hope to eventually place this information on the Web (with
>appropriate security measures, data limitations, etc), and are currently
>looking at adding images of about 20% of each collection.  Each museum
>already has some photography completed, but much more still needs to be done,
>(probably over 10,000 at one museum alone).
>
>Tradition calls for black & white photography -even if the computer fails,
>you have the negatives -but photography, film, development & storage are very
>expensive, not to mention scanning & CD conversion costs.  A digital camera
>with image storage on writable CD-rom would seem to cut out some expensive
>steps, but is it really that easy?   Does this method also cut out necessary
>steps?
>
>I would like to hear about any pitfalls, as well as praise, before before
>committing to one method or the other.   Which is the best method to use, &
>what will make the project most cost efective?
>
>Margaret Lyman, Registrar
>Atwater Kent Museum
>215-922-3031
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>