| Project participants: |
Powerhouse
Museum |
| Contact officer/s: |
Mitra Bhar, Systems Manager (email
mitra@phm.gov.au, phone 02 9217 0153 or
fax 02 9217 0175) or Margaret Rafferty (email
margaret@phm.gov.au) |
| Project
description: To digitise the museum's object and non-object collection
of photographs for use on the museum's Web site, staff and public access,
publications, public programs, information booths etc. The images will also be
linked to the Collections Information System. There is also a document imaging
component to digitise documents and link to the records management system.
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| URL of site: |
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| URL for project information: |
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| Content: |
Photographs and film |
| Digitisation policy and priorities: |
No digitisation or online policy. Approximately 60-80%
of the Museum's entire collection is involved in this digitisation project. 40%
has already been digitised; 50% is planned to be digitised by the end of 1998
and 60% by the end of 1999. |
| Timetable: |
Current project: 1 July 1995 - 30 June 2000. |
| Budget and funding: |
State government funding - over $A1,000,000. |
| Staff resources: |
Outsourced to private company. Internal staff training
planned - specific to the use of digital equipment, databases, scanning, CD ROM
burning etc. Private collaboration for their expertise in the area of imaging,
however the museum is paying for their services. The museum intends to make
available its expertise gained to others, if they choose to take it up. |
| Technical standards: |
Full resolution colour images (24 bit colours),
thumbnails 8 bit colour. Captured in TIFF format using JPEG compression. Full
resolution B&W images stored in 200dpi and compressed using CCITT Group 4.
Image resolutions are between 384 x 256 and 6114 x 4096 pixels, with thumbnails
being stored in 384 x 256 pixel resolution. Principal software used: Photoshop
IXOS jukebox software Access database Capturing equipment: Fujitsu document
scanner (M30976) Kodak digital cameras: DC50; EOS DCSI, DCS3 Kodak scanner RFS
5570 Nikkon scanner LS 1000 UMAX flatbed scanner Mirage.D-16L Storage devices:
SCSI Corporation's MSM Jukebox Currently digital images are stored on tapes and
CDROMS so that these could be converted to the next generation of technologies
when the need arises. |
| Cataloguing and indexing: |
The museum is setting up an image management system
with cataloguing information (sample copy of fields and records available on
request). |
| Comments: |
Technical difficulties primarily occurred due to
inadequate knowledge of the equipment, incompatibility with software versions,
printing and scanning problems etc. These were resolved by getting contract
staff in to fix problems, training staff in equipment usage and resolving
software incompatibilities by standardising all versions of software. The
major lesson learnt is the vulnerability of the project to outside influence,
losing staff once they have gained relevant expertise in the area. Archive
backup and storage facilities required which had been underestimated when the
project began, and the steep learning curve required to come to grips with the
size and complexity of the task. |
Last modified: October 20 2009.