To echo the sentiments of Dot and Maxim, I'd like to emphasize the importance of ad-hoc DIY digitization even without elaborate set-ups and procedures. Even a modest digital camera can go an awfully long way towards improving visibility of manuscripts (though obviously insufficient for official archival purposes). From a community standpoint (complicated logistical issues aside for the moment), I think that a large open access repository of legible images, even if some are subject to poor lighting and shaky hands, is far more valuable than a much smaller collection of more painstakingly produced digitizations. Ideally, we can pursue both at the same time. But I think it's useful to keep in mind what a tremendous resource even our quick and dirty image work can become--and that we shouldn't be discouraged from jumping in with an itchy trigger finger simply because we're worried that we're not following official best practices.
The above comments probably reveal my preference for thinking about how to create and utilize an open access image repository (perhaps more of a social challenge than a technical one) rather than the logistics of producing images in the first place. Though by no means do I mean to minimize the challenges of digitization. Indeed, the discussion of how to meet the threshold of utility in image creation is a crucial first step. But a larger (and somewhat utopian) vision of manuscript image access, even with a latitude of image quality, is perhaps worth bearing in mind as best practices are worked out.
Fred Gibbs
2010/10/28
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Best practices for "scholar's own" digitization?
(Maxim Romanov)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Maxim Romanov <romanov@umich.edu>
To: "Neven Jovanović" <neven.jovanovic@ffzg.hr>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 12:31:54 -0400
Subject: Re: [dm-l] Best practices for "scholar's own" digitization?
Hi,
This can quite efficiently done without engaging control via PC. I am using two Canon 12 megapixel point-and-shoot cameras (SD 780). I am not convinced that you need a DSLR camera for this (they are way to expensive and do not necessarily provide a better image quality). I use them in combination with some software (http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/sdm/index.htm) that allows to use a usb switch to trigger both cameras at the same time (you get two pages - left and right - in the same instance and 12 megapixel is quite enough for up to A4 format). Thus, I end up with two flashcards holding left and right pages separately. There are programs which allow to renames images in batches (so, I rename all right images as XXXX-1 and left images as XXXX-2, where XXXX are automatically generated numbers). Then, copy them into one folder and they are automatically arranged. Then, for processing images I found an excellent freeware program, ScanTailor, that does a great job - most of it automatically - processing images into nice looking pages (http://scantailor.sourceforge.net/), which then can be combined into a very nice looking PDF.
Maxim
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Frederick W Gibbs
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