Digitisation: Just Digitise It!

1. Just Digitise It
Community Heritage Grants Program digitisation workshop
29 October 2014

2. Session outline
1.35 Arrival and welcome
1.40 - 2.40 pm Planning a digitisation project
• Setting standards
• Resources needed
• Care of your originals
• Care of your copies
2.40 - 3.00 pm Digitisation facility tour/ afternoon tea (first half)
3.00 - 3.20 pm Digitisation facility tour/ afternoon tea (second half)
3.30 - 4.00 pm Negotiating rights before you digitise
Nicki Mackay-Sim, Curator of Pictures, NLA
4.00 – 4.30 pm Providing access
• Getting images online
• Metadata and sharing images
4.30 - 5.00 pm Q & A

3. Notes for the session
http://prov.vic.gov.au/community-programs/training/just-digitise-it
6 project stages described
•Planning
•Preparing
•Creating
•Describing
•Editing
•Publishing

4. Setting standards

5. Setting standards
Matching standards to the project
Two main impetus…es for digitisation
• Preservation
– OHIO (only handle it once)
– colour management, ‘master’ copies
• Access
– search/ discoverability
– crowdsourcing

6. Setting standards
Factors
• How much material to copy?
• What condition? (preservation needs assesment)
• How much time/ money do you have?
• Has somebody already digitised it? (books…)
• What is its significance? (significance statement, etc.)

7. Setting standards
How do we see?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision

8. Setting standards
What is a digital image?
4d4d 002a 0000 ea68 ffff ff00 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
.... Black pixels (0's) left out ....
0000 0000 00ff ffff 000e 0100 0003 0000
0001 0064 0000 0101 0003 0000 0001 00c8
0000 0102 0003 0000 0003 0000 eb16 0103
0003 0000 0001 0001 0000 0106 0003 0000
0001 0002 0000 0111 0004 0000 0001 0000
0008 0112 0003 0000 0001 0001 0000 0115
0003 0000 0001 0003 0000 0116 0003 0000
0001 00c8 0000 0117 0004 0000 0001 0000
ea60 0118 0003 0000 0003 0000 eb1c 0119
0003 0000 0003 0000 eb22 011c 0003 0000
0001 0001 0000 0153 0003 0000 0003 0000
eb28 0000 0000 0008 0008 0008 0000 0000
0000 00ff 00ff 00ff 0001 0001 0001
ffffff = 255,255,255
( r g b )
in hexadecimal notation
from http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/dataformats/tiff/

9. Setting standards
Resolution
1 inch 1 inch
@300dpi
= 90,000 pixels
@72dpi
= 5,184 pixels
1 inch 1 inch
‘Screen’ resolution Standard ‘Print’ resolution

10. Setting standards
Compression
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG
83,261 bytes 1,523 bytes

11. Setting standards
The short version
National Library of Australia
http://www.nla.gov.au/standards/image-capture
Public Record Office Victoria
http://prov.vic.gov.au/government/standards-and-policy/capture

12. Resources needed

15. Resources needed
Physical resources
• Space
– managed, secure (fire, flood, pests, ancient wiring, not about
to be reclaimed by Council for boutique carparks, etc.)
– flat (shelving, tables)
• Supplies
– rehousing materials for copied originals
– acid free paper, plastic film, gloves, pencils, spirit level,
measuring tape/ rulers, gaffer tape, extension cables, USB
sticks, random things that aren’t too grubby

16. Resources needed
Physical resources
• Toys!
– Scanning equipment
– Colour calibration equipment
– Workstations
– Storage

17. Resources needed
Human resources
• Project manager
• Project committee
(for when the manager heads off to Noosa)
• Tame experts
• Volunteers
– what do you need from them?
– what do they get out of it?

18. Resources needed
Documentation
• Digitisation policy/ strategy/ plan
• Project statement/ plan
• Risk management framework
• Specific policies/ procedures
• Written agreements with donors and
digitisers
• Passwords. Write them down.

19. Resources needed
Permission
• From your group
• From your stakeholders
• From your donors/ owners of the material
• From your funders
(ok, you need money as well – not this talk)

20. Care of your originals

21. Care of your originals
Collection management
• Are the items catalogued? (Does the catalogue make sense?)
• Are they securely stored?
• Do you know who owns what?
… things go missing.

22. Care of your originals
Preservation management
• put it in a box (controls light, humidity, physical safety)
• wrapped in plastic (anything except PVC)
• write on the enclosure, not the object
• only take it out when you have to
… things get old.

23. Care of your originals
Relationship management
• have some handling rules (gloves, induction)
• digitisation providers should be able to
describe their security and preservation
measures
• don’t break the original to digitise it
… things get dropped.

24. Care of your originals
Further further reading
National Standards for Museums and Galleries
• http://www.collectionsaustralia.net/sector_info_item/107
Keeping Archives

25. Care of your copies

26. Care of your copies
Hardware failure
• backups, offsite preferably
• understand the limits of the storage
technology
• checksums – or just look at your images every
so often

27. Care of your copies
Hardware obsolescence
• migration, vary your storage options
• active management of collection

28. Care of your copies
Software obsolescence
• open formats
(image formats have been stable for decades)
• open applications
(separate the data from the program)
• plan for and budget migrations

29. Care of your copies
Poor management and documentation
• Bill is your IT guy. He has
just fallen under a bus.
• Try not to implement
systems you don’t
understand.

30. Digital Preservation
Hardware failure
• backups, offsite preferably
• understand the limits of the storage
technology
• checksums – or just look at your images every
so often

31. Metadata
Summary
• All of your data needs to be easily extractable from
the software it’s in.
• Create a simple file structure and make sure people
stick to it.
• Manage your backups properly (no lending to
people, manage your risks, NO shortcuts).

32. Getting images online

33. Getting images online
Originals and renditions
• xyz

34. Getting images online
Originals and renditions
Constraints on delivering raw images
• Connection speed and bandwidth
• Screen size and resolution
• Control over rights to the image

35. Getting images online
Options for publishing
• Don’t…
• Use existing commercial tools and services (Flickr,
Facebook, eHive)
• Use existing community services (Victorian
Collections)
• Your own site (Wordpress, Omeka)

36. Getting images online
What and why to put online
• Marketing your organisation (‘going viral’)
• Online archive (TROVE)
• Storytelling
• Online communities

37. Metadata and sharing images

38. Metadata
Definition
• Data about data (and data systems)
• Look at the data surrounding an image
in Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/
• Explore the Powerhouse Museum:
• http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/
• Metadata reading:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata

39. Metadata
• Think about how your existing data can be:
• Categorised into different functions
(descriptive, discovery, preservation, etc.)
• Standardised (eg. Dublin Core) enabling
matches with other collections and websites.

40. Metadata
• Important things to record:
– Identity (title, ‘control symbol’)
– Classification (subject, function)
– History (dates, purposes)
– [Description]

41. Metadata
Identity
• Some items may not have titles. What is the thing
that distinguishes one item from the next in a
collection?
• Remember physical cues not same as digital.
Perhaps the filename of your image is the title?
• ‘Control Symbol’: Catalogue / collection / record-keeping
number.

42. Metadata
Classification
• Information to manage items and help
narrow down searches.
• Library: ‘subject’ – what is it about?
• Archive: ‘function’ – what does it do?
• Internet: ‘tagging’ – where did I put it again?
• Subject/ topic list for images:
http://www.picturethesaurus.gov.au/

43. Metadata
History
• Archive/ Museum: ‘provenance’ – where is it
from? (which collection, which donor)
• Management history: what has happened to
it? ie., what date was it scanned?
• Scanning is another layer to existing
management history that might be recorded
in your collection database.

44. Metadata
Description
• Extended stories about item (mum on a bike)
• Description of physical original – dimensions,
special features
• Description of digital copy – dpi, file format

45. Metadata
Description
• Extended stories about item (mum on a bike)
• Description of physical original – dimensions,
special features
• Description of digital copy – dpi, file format

46. Metadata
Description
• Extended stories about item (mum on a bike)
• Description of physical original – dimensions,
special features
• Description of digital copy – dpi, file format

47. Metadata
Description
• Extended stories about item (mum on a bike)
• Description of physical original – dimensions,
special features
• Description of digital copy – dpi, file format

48. Q & A