An organisation is going to streamline their operations by reducing some software systems that are used for managing their collections of images, manuscripts, research papers, audio and video recordings. They decide to migrate all data and digital files into a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system that was installed by DIW two years ago.
I was invited to propose a solution to batch migrate these records automatically, particularly the text metadata. In other words, they want to avoid having to copy and paste the 20,000 records from one system to another. Yes, who wants to do that?
Unfortunately, after evaluating the data structure and the digital files that are kept in piles of CDs, I have to tell them the sad news that they have to copy and paste the 20,000 records manually.
What could they have done right at the beginning when they started to use a software to manage their digital collections? The points described below are not just applicable if you are using a software system, but also applicable if you are using Excel for metadata entry.
Of national significance, the main catalogue provides a fantastic history archive with about 16,000 scanned photos showing the history of the Australia Telescope National Facility.
It was decided it would be impractical to scan and digitise the entire collection, so historian and professional archivist Dr Wayne Orchiston was employed to evaluate the 12000 sets of records, containing up to 100 negatives per set and to provide historical information and captions for some of the images.
With the help of DIW, ISEAS Library has benefited from the Digital Asset Management (DAM) system it deployed in 2010 and 2011. The library's mass digitisation of some 50,000 old slides and photographs and a growing multimedia collection resulted in a large amount of digital images and associated content requiring unprecedented institutional management.
We have been invited by a few organisations to suggest solutions on digitising paper documents. These organisations range from a shipping company to a school.
The main reason that initiates their move is the most obvious advantage of digitising paper documents: Saving storage space.
I am sure you have seen many mural size prints in shopping malls, outside buildings or in exhibitions. Most often, you are viewing them from a distance such that you can see the entire print.
Have you ever gone closer and see the details of the print? Let me use a mural size print in an exhibition as an illustration.
This document provides guidance on how to maximize the lifetime and usefulness of optical discs, specifically CD and DVD media, by minimizing chances of information loss caused by environmental influences or physical handling.
"Media deterioration is but one aspect of the preservation challenge. A potentially more immediate threat is technological obsolescence. Technological advances will no doubt make current optical disc types obsolete within several years."
For those who have dealt with web/graphic designer or printer before, you would probably get this request from them. “Give me the images in 72 dpi for web design,” or “Give me the images in 200 or 300 dpi for printing?” Is this mysterious DPI value an important factor for the quality of image used in Web publishing or printing?
I am not going to explain in details what is DPI (Dots Per Inch). I am also not going to explain where the value 72 comes from. I know how confusing it is when talking about DPI. My objective here is to make your life simpler.
In order to manage the collections efficiently, an institution took the initiative to catalogue its collections digitally a few years ago. Software was purchased for recording the collections that has a size of two thousand items. Many hard works and effort were put into data entry of the two thousand items. At the same time, many of the items were scanned using scanner.
As more and more digital files are created, an increasing number of organisations are reaching a critical pain threshold in needing to control and manage their vast amount of digital assets.
You probably have heard about the scary stories of losing digital files in a crashed computer, but you might not know of another danger which is taking place gradually. It is called technology obsolescence. For examples, the change of file format, the dropout of less popular software, the extinction of storage media, etc.
An organisation is going to streamline their operations by reducing some software systems that are used for managing their collections of images, manuscripts, research papers, audio and video recordings. They decide to migrate all data and digital files into a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system that was installed by DIW two years ago.
Update: The image archive is released on the Internet now... running on Cumulus Sites.
With the help of DIW, ISEAS Library has benefited from the Digital Asset Management (DAM) system it deployed in 2010 and 2011. The library's mass digitisation of some 50,000 old slides and photographs and a growing multimedia collection resulted in a large amount of digital images and associated content requiring unprecedented institutional management.
