How Bad is “Good Enough”? Mass Digitization of Photographic Archives
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How Bad is “Good Enough”?Mass Digitization of Photographic
Archives
James Eason
The Bancroft Library
University of California at Berkeley
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My Context
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Is mass digitization an answer?
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Photographs: Considerations for Scanning Strategies
• Perceived value(s)
• Preservation needs
• Reproduction is key to use
• Description: more detail justified?
• Concept of “archival evidence”
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Digitization of Photos
Do it once, do it right?
or Just do it?
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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)
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Cost/Quality Compromise
• 800 ppi resolution (for 4 x 5 in.)
• 16 bit grayscale (not 8 bit)
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Low-Cost Approach
Results
21,000 negatives scanned
$1.50 to $3.00 per image
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Case Study
The San Francisco Examiner Newspaper Photograph Archive
at The Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley
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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
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Priorities
• Preservation (triage & storage environment)
• Access• Long term preservation plan
(with support from NEH)
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What is “Doing it Right”???
“Preservation reformatting” is ill-defined in the digital age
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Mass Digitization as a Tool
• Access• Curatorial assessment & appraisal• Preservation?
– Assessment– Preserve context
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Two Work-flows Tested
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
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What did we get for our effort?
(Or, “How bad is good enough?”)
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Is that all?
(No, actually):
– Serviceable production masters– Curatorial review tool– Strategic preservation strategy
• Context & archival evidence (all)• Selected images (very few)
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Preservation Strategy
What will we preserve?Full aesthetic value?
Context and basic information?
• Select for Preservation Reformatting5 % ?
2 % ?
• Recorded archival context of the whole• Consider film-from-digital for entirety of nitrate files
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ReiterateComparison of Scan Approaches
• 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
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What’s Next?
• User interface– Assess impact
• More funding to continue
• Further assessment of film output approaches
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Appendix
User interface examples
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