About a year after commencing the digital capture stage of this project, we are approaching its completion. This is then, an opportune moment to look back over the past year and reflect on some of the challenges we have faced over the course of digitising this sizeable and somewhat varied collection of works.
As with all projects undertaken in the digitisation unit, a benchmarking process was carried out before digitisation work began. This is essentially a discussion and subsequently documented agreement of workflow arrangements, handling requirements and imaging specifications to be followed. This ensures that original materials are handled appropriately and are digitised using the most suitable capture method, and provides all those involved in the digitisation process with a point of reference from which to carry out their task.
With such a diverse range of items to digitise, it was necessary to benchmark each set of items individually, as they became ready for digitisation. One of the major considerations was the equipment that we would use to capture a particular type of original, and while this was primarily dictated by the type of material we also had to consider time constraints, and balance this with ensuring that the best possible result was achieved.
This has been a very interesting project to work on, and it has been exciting to be able to handle these original works. We still have a little way to go before the digital capture process is complete, but already I am looking forward to seeing the digitised works displayed online.
Julia Thomas