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 Reformatting 5 % ? 2 % ? Recorded archival context of the whole Consider film-from-digital for entirety of nitrate files

Reiterate Comparison 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

Whats Next? User interface –Assess impact More funding to continue Further assessment of film output approaches

Appendix User interface examples