SlideShare a Scribd company logo

Small Museums Guide to Making the Jump to Digital and the Web

•Download as PPT, PDF•
•
Minnesota Historical Society
Minnesota Historical Society

The document provides guidance for small museums on digitizing collections and making them accessible online. It discusses prioritizing what to digitize based on risk of loss and research value. It also covers project planning, digitization best practices, file formats, and options for online access and collection management systems.

1 of 24
Small Museum’s Guide to Making the Jump to Digital and the Web Joe Hoover February 2012
It Depends.
Digital
Why Digitize? Involve/engage public Aid researchers Altruistic (share the collection) Minimize staff time on requests Gain publicity Reproduction sales Increase donations
Project Planning: Labor In House Regular Staff Volunteers Interns Outsource
Prioritizing Digital Preservation Media Tasks Analog media that is deteriorating or fading in the case of color photos Media that requires rare/outmoded devices for playback. Material in your collection that could not be replaced if it were lost or damaged. Material in your collection that is frequently requested or accessed and has high research value
Digital Asset Priority Matrix Low Risk High Risk High Value Low Value
Don’t Put the Cart before the horse These are logical steps to complete before digitization General collections survey Collections inventory Registration (cataloging) Collections storage Conservation treatment
Choices for online access All, Some or None Watermarks Image size Members only Web hosting considerations
What to Digitize? What about Copyright? Historical Collections (photos and text): Public domain (1923) No known copyright Fare use Smaller low resolution images online only
Key points to consider: Don’t assume everything should be digitized. Assume Best Practices not “Gold Standard” Access is key. Digitizing makes it possible to produce a good catalog, which then makes the value of the materials obvious to others. On-line catalogues and promotional information are critical to encourage broad usage. Compared to film and photos, magnetic video and audio are often “overlooked” for preservation. Transferring older videotapes and film to digital formats requires a plan and realistic timeline.
Digital Formats Media Preferred Possible Unacceptable Web Access Only Text - Plain text (encoding: US ASCII, UTF-8, UTF-16 with BOM) - PDF/A-1-a (*.pdf) - PDF/A-1-b (*.pdf)(embedded fonts) - Rich Text Format (*.rtf) - Microsoft Word (*.doc) - PDF (external font) - All other text formats not listed here - Plain text  - PDF/A-1-a (*.pdf) - PDF/A-1-b (*.pdf) Images (ie: Photos, scanned documents) - TIFF (*.tiff) (uncompressed) - JPEG2000 (uncompressed)(*.jp2, *.jpx) - BMP (*.bmp) - TIFF (*.tiff)(with LZW compression or in Planar format) - GIF (*.gif) -JPEG/JFIF (*.jpg,jpeg) -PNG (*.png) - PhotoShop (*,psd) - All other raster image formats not listed here -JPEG/JFIF(*.jpg) -PNG(*.png) - GIF (*.gif) Audio - WAVE (.wav) - Standard MIDI (*.mid,*.midi) - Ogg Vorbis (*.ogg) - AIFF (uncompressed) (*.aif,*.aiff) - RealNetworks ‘Real Audio’ (*.ra, *.rm, *ram) - QuickTime (*.mov) - Windows Media Audio (*.wma)  - WAVE (compressed) (*.wav) - MP3 (*.mp3) - AIFC (*.aifc) - NeXT SND (*.snd) - All other audio formats not listed here - MP3 (*.mp3) - Windows Media Audio (*.wma)  - QuickTIme (*.mov) - Windows Media Audio (*.wma)  - Ogg Vorbis (*.ogg) - Adobe Flash (*.fla) Video - AVI¶ (uncompressed or  DV compression for Video Tape) (*.avi) - QuickTime Movie¶ (uncompressed or  DV compression for Video Tape) (*.mov) - Material Exchange Format(*.mxf) - Ogg Theora (*.ogg) - AVI (compressed) (*.avi) - QuickTime Movie  (compressed) (*.mov) - Windows Media Video (*.wmv)  - RealNetworks ‘Real Video’ (*.rv, *.rm, *ram) - MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (*.mpg,*.mpeg) - All other video formats not listed here - MPEG-4 (*.mp4) - QuickTime Movie (*.mov) - Windows Media Video (*.wmv)  - Ogg Theora (*.ogg) - Adobe Flash (*.fla)
Guidelines for Creating Digital Photographs Master Web Access Thumbnail File Format TIFF PNG or JPEG JPEG Bit Depth 16 bit grayscale 24 bit color 8 bit grayscale 24 bit color 8 bit grayscale 24 bit color Spatial Resolution 400 to 800 ppi 72ppi 72ppi Spatial Dimensions 4000 to 8000 pixels across the long dimension, depending on size of original, excluding mounts and borders 600 pixels across the long dimension 150 to 200 pixels across the long dimension
Digitizing Oral History Audio WAV (BWF) format Sample rate of 44.1kHz 16 bit depth. Gain level monitored to insure consistent range among all recordings No effects processing (compressor, EQ, etc.)
Digitizing Video and Film
Web
CMS Web sites
WordPress vs. Drupal Average Monthly Maintenance Cost: Average set up and customization costs: Ease of Installation: Who is it for? Popular sites that use it WORDPRESS DRUPAL Information and graphics from Deviousmedia.com. To view these and other stats go to: http://bit.ly/pJWcWd
Google sites 100 MB of storage (for free account) Site can display custom domain (e.g. www.example.com) No ads are displayed, though each user may choose to monetize their site with the AdSense integration. Multiple page layout options Revision history for most page types Access to a full library of custom gadgets which can be used to greatly extend the functionality of Google Sites. Integrated with other Google Products YouTube, Google AdSense, Google Calendar, Google Maps, and Google Analytics, Google Checkout, etc… Limitations: Google logo at the top of pages (Free Account) Limited page-design options Limited Site storage capability Limited e-store capabilities, can not add a custom shopping cart
Credit Card Work Around Solutions Google Checkout Paypal
Donation and member management GiveMN.org CiviCRM.org
Collection management & Online exhibits Online Collection Management CMS Online Exhibits CMS (omeka.org) (pachyderm.nmc.org) (collectionspace.org) (collectiveaccess.org) (collectiveaccess.org)
Mobile Tours (tapintomuseums.org) (winonamntours.org) (mobilehistorical.org) (omeka.org) (clevelandhistorical.org)
Thank You

More Related Content

Small Museums Guide to Making the Jump to Digital and the Web

  • 1. Small Museum’s Guide to Making the Jump to Digital and the Web Joe Hoover February 2012
  • 4. Why Digitize? Involve/engage public Aid researchers Altruistic (share the collection) Minimize staff time on requests Gain publicity Reproduction sales Increase donations
  • 5. Project Planning: Labor In House Regular Staff Volunteers Interns Outsource
  • 6. Prioritizing Digital Preservation Media Tasks Analog media that is deteriorating or fading in the case of color photos Media that requires rare/outmoded devices for playback. Material in your collection that could not be replaced if it were lost or damaged. Material in your collection that is frequently requested or accessed and has high research value
  • 7. Digital Asset Priority Matrix Low Risk High Risk High Value Low Value
  • 8. Don’t Put the Cart before the horse These are logical steps to complete before digitization General collections survey Collections inventory Registration (cataloging) Collections storage Conservation treatment
  • 9. Choices for online access All, Some or None Watermarks Image size Members only Web hosting considerations
  • 10. What to Digitize? What about Copyright? Historical Collections (photos and text): Public domain (1923) No known copyright Fare use Smaller low resolution images online only
  • 11. Key points to consider: Don’t assume everything should be digitized. Assume Best Practices not “Gold Standard” Access is key. Digitizing makes it possible to produce a good catalog, which then makes the value of the materials obvious to others. On-line catalogues and promotional information are critical to encourage broad usage. Compared to film and photos, magnetic video and audio are often “overlooked” for preservation. Transferring older videotapes and film to digital formats requires a plan and realistic timeline.
  • 12. Digital Formats Media Preferred Possible Unacceptable Web Access Only Text - Plain text (encoding: US ASCII, UTF-8, UTF-16 with BOM) - PDF/A-1-a (*.pdf) - PDF/A-1-b (*.pdf)(embedded fonts) - Rich Text Format (*.rtf) - Microsoft Word (*.doc) - PDF (external font) - All other text formats not listed here - Plain text  - PDF/A-1-a (*.pdf) - PDF/A-1-b (*.pdf) Images (ie: Photos, scanned documents) - TIFF (*.tiff) (uncompressed) - JPEG2000 (uncompressed)(*.jp2, *.jpx) - BMP (*.bmp) - TIFF (*.tiff)(with LZW compression or in Planar format) - GIF (*.gif) -JPEG/JFIF (*.jpg,jpeg) -PNG (*.png) - PhotoShop (*,psd) - All other raster image formats not listed here -JPEG/JFIF(*.jpg) -PNG(*.png) - GIF (*.gif) Audio - WAVE (.wav) - Standard MIDI (*.mid,*.midi) - Ogg Vorbis (*.ogg) - AIFF (uncompressed) (*.aif,*.aiff) - RealNetworks ‘Real Audio’ (*.ra, *.rm, *ram) - QuickTime (*.mov) - Windows Media Audio (*.wma)  - WAVE (compressed) (*.wav) - MP3 (*.mp3) - AIFC (*.aifc) - NeXT SND (*.snd) - All other audio formats not listed here - MP3 (*.mp3) - Windows Media Audio (*.wma)  - QuickTIme (*.mov) - Windows Media Audio (*.wma)  - Ogg Vorbis (*.ogg) - Adobe Flash (*.fla) Video - AVI¶ (uncompressed or  DV compression for Video Tape) (*.avi) - QuickTime Movie¶ (uncompressed or  DV compression for Video Tape) (*.mov) - Material Exchange Format(*.mxf) - Ogg Theora (*.ogg) - AVI (compressed) (*.avi) - QuickTime Movie  (compressed) (*.mov) - Windows Media Video (*.wmv)  - RealNetworks ‘Real Video’ (*.rv, *.rm, *ram) - MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (*.mpg,*.mpeg) - All other video formats not listed here - MPEG-4 (*.mp4) - QuickTime Movie (*.mov) - Windows Media Video (*.wmv)  - Ogg Theora (*.ogg) - Adobe Flash (*.fla)
  • 13. Guidelines for Creating Digital Photographs Master Web Access Thumbnail File Format TIFF PNG or JPEG JPEG Bit Depth 16 bit grayscale 24 bit color 8 bit grayscale 24 bit color 8 bit grayscale 24 bit color Spatial Resolution 400 to 800 ppi 72ppi 72ppi Spatial Dimensions 4000 to 8000 pixels across the long dimension, depending on size of original, excluding mounts and borders 600 pixels across the long dimension 150 to 200 pixels across the long dimension
  • 14. Digitizing Oral History Audio WAV (BWF) format Sample rate of 44.1kHz 16 bit depth. Gain level monitored to insure consistent range among all recordings No effects processing (compressor, EQ, etc.)
  • 16. Web
  • 18. WordPress vs. Drupal Average Monthly Maintenance Cost: Average set up and customization costs: Ease of Installation: Who is it for? Popular sites that use it WORDPRESS DRUPAL Information and graphics from Deviousmedia.com. To view these and other stats go to: http://bit.ly/pJWcWd
  • 19. Google sites 100 MB of storage (for free account) Site can display custom domain (e.g. www.example.com) No ads are displayed, though each user may choose to monetize their site with the AdSense integration. Multiple page layout options Revision history for most page types Access to a full library of custom gadgets which can be used to greatly extend the functionality of Google Sites. Integrated with other Google Products YouTube, Google AdSense, Google Calendar, Google Maps, and Google Analytics, Google Checkout, etc… Limitations: Google logo at the top of pages (Free Account) Limited page-design options Limited Site storage capability Limited e-store capabilities, can not add a custom shopping cart
  • 20. Credit Card Work Around Solutions Google Checkout Paypal
  • 21. Donation and member management GiveMN.org CiviCRM.org
  • 22. Collection management & Online exhibits Online Collection Management CMS Online Exhibits CMS (omeka.org) (pachyderm.nmc.org) (collectionspace.org) (collectiveaccess.org) (collectiveaccess.org)
  • 23. Mobile Tours (tapintomuseums.org) (winonamntours.org) (mobilehistorical.org) (omeka.org) (clevelandhistorical.org)

Editor's Notes

  1. Digital Conversion and Online Access Guidelines Digital Conversion In-House Guidelines Digital Conversion Services Guidelines Minnesota Digital Library Marian Rengel, outreach coordinator Tel: 320-308-5625 [email_address]
  2. High priority is given to film, magnetic audio and video tape and photographs meeting the following measures: Footage related to Minnesota. It is unique or inaccessible to the public (magnetic tape, film and photographic negatives). Otherwise likely to be damaged or lost. Close to the original generation and of good image quality. Accompanied by documentation. Low priority is given to: Digitizing Newspapers on Microfilm Digitizing B/W print photographs Undocumented magnetic audio and video tape and film Digitizing your “entire” collection
  3. Do an assessment to determine what holdings are most important. = Not every document needs to be preserved like the U.S. Constitution Whether U.S. Constitution or a City Charter, Metadata is equally important = The more accessible the materials are, the more they will be used.
  4. This is the technical part of the presentation No DVD – which is a Medium not a format Realplayer
  5. Instead of listening read: Digital Imaging for the Small Organization version 1.1 Maps Graphics Text Film/Negatives
  6. Credit Card Capabilities Talk to your bank, do web search May have to buy terminal ($50-$500+) What features do you need? Will it work with your phone lines? Can it integrate with other software (i.e., Quickbooks)? Discount fees (usually <3%) Monthly fees ($10-$30) Set-up fees (free to ???)
  7. Winona State has partnered with the Winona County Historical Society (WCHS) and Winona360.org to produce a mobile walking tour website. This project is intended to interface with a new exhibit being planned at the WCHS: “Identities in Brick & Stone”, highlighting several significant buildings in downtown Winona, MN. The mobile website utilizes new features in HTML5 (geolocation), to guide users on a walking tour of these locations. This has primarily been a student developed project that has been run with staff (me) and faculty oversight. We are using TAP to organize and present the content about these buildings to the user. I’ve attached several screenshots of the application that will show the workflow of the site.