Dear Museum Colleagues,

I am about to apply for a grant to purchase digitization equipment, specifically for digitizing large (over 36" wide) fragile maps and engineering drawings. My museum is very limited in space; I know that's a common issue for us all. Ideally, in my experience archival documents should be shot using high resolution TIFF images, with a camera whilst laid flat with a neutral background, photo scale, and color scale.  They shouldn't be passed through a roller scanner, and from what I know, scanners don't seem to scan beyond 600dpi. But, the flat shoot scenario requires a tremendous amount of space that we don't really have. The only space I can think of has several issues for such a setup:

1)      It's our board's meeting room, and essentially the only staff meeting room on site.

2)      It's not secure from the public, custodial staff, or volunteers.

3)      It's very bright with lots of windows that would need to be covered.

4)      There are many longtime volunteers and board members who would take personal offense at repurposing that space, and covering the windows, no matter how good the cause may be for digitizing.


The alternative is to purchase a scanner that has rollers which documents would pass through. Although still a large piece of equipment, this would fit in an available basement workspace where it's a little more secure (away from public and custodial staff, and only trained volunteers can use). We could create a Mylar sleeve to protect documents from catching as they pass through the scanner, but I realize that this will still squeeze the documents and cause potential damage.

My question to you all is whether we should write the grant to purchase the "ideal" setup for digitizing, and squeeze it into the board room, potentially an insecure and politically troublesome move, or if we should make do and go for a roller scanner due to our limited space.

My initial thought is we should do the best we can with what we've got, and in the absence of adequate space to create a full photo-shoot digitization laboratory, we probably have to settle for a station with a roller scanner.

The end goal is to get these documents digitized to make them electronically available and to protect the originals, which either scenario would allow.

Thoughts appreciated!

Stephanie Gilmore
Curator of Collections
Colorado Railroad Museum

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