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How Bad is “Good Enough”? Mass Digitization of Photographic Archives

How Bad is “Good Enough”? Mass Digitization of Photographic Archives. James Eason The Bancroft Library University of California at Berkeley. My Context. Is mass digitization an answer?. Photographs: Considerations for Scanning Strategies. Perceived value(s) Preservation needs

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How Bad is “Good Enough”? Mass Digitization of Photographic Archives

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  1. How Bad is “Good Enough”?Mass Digitization of Photographic Archives James Eason The Bancroft Library University of California at Berkeley

  2. My Context

  3. Is mass digitization an answer?

  4. Photographs: Considerations for Scanning Strategies • Perceived value(s) • Preservation needs • Reproduction is key to use • Description: more detail justified? • Concept of “archival evidence”

  5. Digitization of PhotosDo it once, do it right?orJust do it?

  6. Low-Cost Approach • Scan everything (no selection) • Minimal keying of existing sleeve data • Batch processing • No image adjustment • No quality control review! • Batch validation (automated scripts)

  7. Cost/Quality Compromise • 800 ppi resolution (for 4 x 5 in.) • 16 bit grayscale (not 8 bit)

  8. Low-Cost ApproachResults 21,000 negatives scanned $1.50 to $3.00 per image

  9. Case Study The San Francisco Examiner Newspaper Photograph Archive at The Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley

  10. San Francisco Examiner News Archive • Over 3.5 million negatives • 70,000 of these are nitrate film (4x5 in.) • 1.5 million or more are acetate

  11. Priorities • Preservation (triage & storage environment) • Access • Long term preservation plan (with support from NEH)

  12. What is “Doing it Right”??? “Preservation reformatting” is ill-defined in the digital age

  13. Mass Digitization as a Tool • Access • Curatorial assessment & appraisal • Preservation? • Assessment • Preserve context

  14. Vendor List sleeves Ship off-site Raw scans + basic metadata returned Batch validation Batch derivatives Load to server Students List sleeves & items Scan in office Raw scans, key data while scanning Batch validation Batch derivatives Load to server Two Work-flows Tested

  15. What did we get for our effort? (Or, “How bad is good enough?”)

  16. Is that all? (No, actually): • Serviceable production masters • Curatorial review tool • Strategic preservation strategy • Context & archival evidence (all) • Selected images (very few)

  17. Preservation Strategy What will we preserve? Full aesthetic value? Context and basic information? • Select for Preservation Reformatting 5 % ? 2 % ? • Recorded archival context of the whole • Consider film-from-digital for entirety of nitrate files

  18. High res (1200 ppi +) High bit depth Huge file sizes Manually adjusted Quality control $12-$18 / image High-ish res (800 ppi) High bit depth (16 bit) Large-ish files (22 MB) Batch processed Batch validation $1.50-$3 / image ReiterateComparison of Scan Approaches

  19. What’s Next? • User interface • Assess impact • More funding to continue • Further assessment of film output approaches

  20. Appendix User interface examples

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