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Dear Joy

I would reach out to the Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography (AHFAP) who also have a JISCmail http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/AHFAP
Members will have very practical experience of these kind of projects.

There are a multitude of methods and workflows you could employ for such a project each with advantages and disadvantages.
From planetary cameras like the Metis EDS Gamma or Icam Guardian to simple cameras on a copy stands with foam wedge supports, to V-shaped book scanners like the I2S Copibook or Atiz BookDrive, to basic flatbed scanners, to highly specialised bits of kit like the Graz book cradle or Digital Transitions BC100. Each with varying levels of quality, precision, operator challenge, speed, material handling, risk to the material(!), efficiency and cost. What I would add is to think about who will be operating the digitisation process?; would it be an experienced heritage photographer or a curator or a volunteer etc? As this will have a huge impact on what's feasible in terms of the kit that is used, the complexity of the workflow and the way you consider how the material is handled.
The next question I would ask is, what do you require from the digitisation process? Images that are so accurate they can be used as part of a conservation analysis, images that are a true digital surrogate that can be researched and studied, or images that can be OCR'd and converted to text, or shared online in a slideshow or in PDF's at low-res etc as this will also help define how to best go about reaching your goal.

There are imaging standards FADGI and Metamorfoze (and ISO19264 which is sadly not a free document) which outline a best practice for image creation (and to some degree storage)
https://www.metamorfoze.nl/sites/metamorfoze.nl/files/publicatie_documenten/Metamorfoze_Preservation_Imaging_Guidelines_1.0.pdf
http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/FADGI%20Federal%20%20Agencies%20Digital%20Guidelines%20Initiative-2016%20Final_rev1.pdf
However these are very complex papers on defining objective standards for image quality, precision and accuracy in heritage digitisation.


Hope that helps

Best Wishes
Andrew



Andrew Bruce

Digitisation Officer

The Postal Museum | 15-20 Phoenix Place | London WC1X 0DA

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