Author Archive
Digitization Champions:
Recapping #AmericanArchivesMonth
As the crisp autumn air changes into a frosty winter breeze, I must accept that “spooky season” is over and with it ends Crowley’s daily #AmericanArchivesMonth social media shout-outs to archive clients using Crowley’s digitization products, services and support. For those that don’t follow Crowley online, now is the time to redeem yourself and follow @CrowleyScans on all platforms. While I begrudgingly exchange my ghosts, bats and witches for all things pumpkin, I’m comforted knowing that archives can still be…
Making Moves: Pennsylvania State Archives Digitizes Collections, Preps for New Archive Space
Moving is a stressful proposition. It can be even more demanding when you’re tasked with moving a massive archival collection…in the middle of a pandemic…with looming deadlines. Talk about stress! No worries; the Pennsylvania State Archives team has been up to the task with a little help from The Crowley Company’s digitization services division. About six years ago, the Harrisburg-based State Archives began the design of a new building. The purpose of the new space was to allow for a…
Digitized Oral History Puts Control Back in the Hands of Native Communities
Working for a digitization company that focuses primarily on still media, it’s easy to forget that not all records are written down or photographed. In Native American cultures, oral traditions play a big role in passing stories, history and heritage to the next generation. Unfortunately, as delicate as paper can be, human lives are even more fragile. This makes the passing of these stories critical to the preservation of tribal communities. The University of New Mexico (UNM) has been one…
Things to Bear in Mind When Selecting a Book Scanner
Zeutschel White Paper Offers Technical Considerations for Book Scanner Purchasers From choosing the right book scanning method to choosing the right book scanner, The Crowley Company’s blog posts have covered multiple options for bound media capture. Thanks to a recent white paper written by Zeutschel GmbH technical director, Volker Jansen, prospects can round out their purchasing knowledge with some technical points to bear in mind. Jansen’s full white paper, “Things to Bear in Mind When Selecting a Book Scanner,” is…
Preserving Legacies: Baylor University and the Zeutschel ScanStudio
Beyond the fountain of youth or the holy grail, digitization is one of the best tools for fighting mortality. If this seems like an overly romantic train of thought, it is. But in a world where our stories are our legacy, the written word – and creating a long-living, high-quality replication of that word – becomes life beyond death. Baylor University’s Ray I. Riley Digitization Center (RDC) preserves the legacies of various artists and histories through their capture and digital…
Access Granted: Five Ways Crowley Supports Your Digitization Grant Process
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I’m a bad shopper. Starting in my early years of stalking the Barbie aisle for what felt like hours when my grandma would generously give me $10 to buy one toy and more recently showing itself after I spent a full year looking for a new car in my budget, purchasing decisions have not been my strong suit and have always included a lot of careful (read: painful) deliberation. In our industry, grant funding…
Seven Miles, 500 Years of Stories: Jekyll Island History Preserved through Map and Blueprint Scanning
From native hunting land to illegal slave port to millionaires playground to family vacation destination, the coastal beaches and blooming land of Jekyll Island, Georgia have drastically transformed over the past 500 years. Through a collaboration between Jekyll Island Museum Archives, the Jekyll Island Authority and digitization partner, The Crowley Company, nearly 5000+ pages of oversized land maps and blueprints of Jekyll’s infrastructure and historic homes have been preserved and made digitally accessible. This week’s blog gives a glimpse of…
Archiving Washington: The People’s Archive Creates Accessible D.C. History
Timing is a funny thing. After learning about the journey of The People’s Archive (originally known as the Special Collections department of the DC Public Library) and their mission to create more efficient digitization, timing seems to look less funny and more like fate (or really good planning). Over the past few years, the DC Public Library’s archive staff has laid significant groundwork for advancing their digitization and customer service. Essential elements of this plan came together just in time…
Digitizing Scientific Research at The Rockefeller Archive Center
If there is anything that life and Christopher Nolan movies has taught me, it is that there are no absolute heroes; even the most exemplar person has faults and the gruffest of characters can have compassion. Case in point: John D. Rockefeller, Senior (Rockefeller, Sr.). Living his living life between the worlds of shrewd oil tycoon and diligent philanthropist, Rockefeller used much of his fortune financing scientific research that sought to eradicate specific social and physical diseases, some of which…
New Digitisation Scanner, a First in Africa
The University of Cape Town’s Digital Library Services Adds 100MP Zeutschel ScanStudio to Offerings The following blog, authored by Carmen Louw and featuring the Zeutschel ScanStudio, has been reposted with permission from Niklas Zimmer of the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa. The ScanStudio sale was spearheaded by longtime Crowley and Zeutschel partner, First Coast Technologies. Friday the 13th is usually heralded as the start of something ominous, but for Digital Library Services (DLS) it was the start of…