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

• Reproduction is key to use

• Description: more detail justified?

• Concept of “archival evidence”

Digitization of Photos

Do it once, do it right?

or Just do it?

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)

Cost/Quality Compromise

• 800 ppi resolution (for 4 x 5 in.)

• 16 bit grayscale (not 8 bit)

Low-Cost Approach

Results

21,000 negatives scanned

$1.50 to $3.00 per image

Case Study

The San Francisco Examiner Newspaper Photograph Archive

at The Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley

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

Priorities

• Preservation (triage & storage environment)

• Access• Long term preservation plan

(with support from NEH)

What is “Doing it Right”???

“Preservation reformatting” is ill-defined in the digital age

Mass Digitization as a Tool

• Access• Curatorial assessment & appraisal• Preservation?

– Assessment– Preserve context

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

What did we get for our effort?

(Or, “How bad is good enough?”)

Is that all?

(No, actually):

– Serviceable production masters– Curatorial review tool– Strategic preservation strategy

• Context & archival evidence (all)• Selected images (very few)

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

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

What’s Next?

• User interface– Assess impact

• More funding to continue

• Further assessment of film output approaches

Appendix

User interface examples