Digitization of archives

[Jonathan Draper]

In response to a recent enquiry about the digitization of archives, I wrote the following:

Until the NRO's Community Archives project gets going, when more detailed advice on digitization will be published here are some immediate thoughts. 

• Ensure whatever you do to capture the image doesn’t damage the original. Scanners are great for photographs, not good for volumes. Cameras on a tripod are more forgiving.
• Capture your images as uncompressed TIFF files. Capture as full colour (even for black and white photographs) and aim for a bit-depth of 16 per channel, though 8 can be used. Aim for at least 600 pixels per inch (ppi).
• When naming files, avoid spaces and include a reference number linked to your accession form. This allows you to manage the images and match them up with paperwork so you know how to handle the images captured.

 

There is a lot of advice online. I find the Library of Congress very helpful though the advice can appear a bit daunting and technical. In addition, a UK company called Townsweb provide some useful training at https://www.townswebarchiving.com/category/how-to-digitise/. One of the reasons for our project is to interpret all the excellent advice out there and make it user friendly for community archives.