British Library: The Digitization programme at the 6th floor
Salvador Alcántara Peláez is the conservator manager of the digitization Programme and he is involved with the Gulf History digitization project funded by Qatar foundation and the British Library (Britsh Library, 2018).Worfklow for digitizing images:
For 4 years 2million images have been processed so far. The main focus is on the history of the Persian golf and scientific manuscripts in Arabic ( alchemy, mathematics, astronomy).It has been a collaborative process between teams. You can see the worklow in a large frame hanging on the wall on the hallway. You can also see the department's quality standards and KPI's. Very impressive!
The workflow for the digitization program began with phase one back in 2012. The process begins with appraisal of the content and condition of the material, the phase two consisted on handling visual content, capturing acording to standards, then the curatiorial foliation, then cataloguing, conservation foliation, then the physical objects enter the imaging studio to be scanned with capture equipment. Quality assurance follows taking care of validating the technical qualities. Then the object is visually inspected to meet exceptional quality. Images then are processed to produced JPEG 2000 images and the XML files containing OCR information. The third phase of this project is scheduled to be finished by 2021. The text will be translated to English and modern Arabic internally and uploaded in the portal. Metadata is prepared following SIP standards for ingesting digital objcets. When everyting is completed, the physical items will return to the basement.
The digitization Room - Imaging, Storage and Conservation Studio
The digitization /imaging studio /storage room and conservation studio has a book conservation poster by Marzo and Whymark.The digitization of this collection is a team effort : A conservation team assess the materials making sure these are fit and meet the project targets. The goal is minimal intervention alterations and to maintain the custodian role, and to handle items in a safe manner. These may need to be stabilized and treated, which is different from image restoration. Each staff member goes through "Handling Training" sessions. Quality assurance is conducted to prevent conservation issues. The digitization standards are JPEG 2000 which is the highest quality.
The Gulf History collection consists of Mathematical treatise, scientific manuscripts, Alchemy, Astrology. Based on the condition of the books and papers, items may be treated, stabilized or repaired. The goal is to do minimal intervention so they treat the items as archeological objects.
To preserve leather covers these are stabilized with Japanese paper that serves to protect ancient notebooks. Some materials may need to be discarded especially when paper was affected by corrosion. Liz Rose showed us two letters on an envelope which belonged to a Lord's private papers thanking for a magic lantern and there is a silk fabric bag in which the lantern was wrapped. It was determined that the silk bag be digitized since the department did not have the funds to repair the silk and it wasl also beyond the scope of the project so they had to compromise and leave the silk bag inside a special envelope paper to prevent damage.
Book conservation and preservation tips for the public are found at the BL site.
References:
The British Library. (2018). British Library and Qatar Foundation Extend Partnership to Digitise 1.1 Million Images of Gulf History.
British Library and Qatar Foundation Partnership. https://www.bl.uk/projects/british-library-qatar-foundation-partnership
British Library. Conservation: Preservation Guides. Retrieved from: https://www.bl.uk/conservation/guides
Marzo & Whymark. The role of book conservation and digitization projects. Retrieved from: https://www.culturalheritage.org/docs/default-source/annualmeeting/2015am_poster_84.pdf?sfvrsn=2
Comments
Post a Comment