Author Archive
Scanning the Past, Creating the Future: Professional Artists Join Crowley Imaging
At Crowley Imaging, a large portion of time is spent each day digitizing and preserving the works of well-known writers, painters and historians of the past. This has the benefit of introducing our imaging specialists to artists, authors and contributions they might not have come across otherwise. This month, our cultural education includes the work of two talented photographers – who also happen to be Crowley Imaging employees. Alison Bur (AB) and Brady Wilks (BW) are currently part of a five-person team working to…
Goldilocks and the Three Scanners: How to Tell Which Overhead Scanning System is “Just Right”
As far as making choices go, Goldilocks had it easy. All her options were laid out in front of her to simply eat, sit and sleep her way to finding which porridge, chair and bed best fit her needs. If all options were laid out before us when faced with making a comparative choice, finding the best fit for any consumer would be as easy as savoring perfectly-tempered porridge. Alas, within the document scanning market – in this case…
Aperture Cards: The Last of an Art Form
Every once in a while an email pops into my inbox that reminds me how unique The Crowley Company is. A few weeks ago, I received notice from our CEO that a major manufacturer of aperture cards in Asia had stopped production, thereby rendering our Wicks and Wilson division the world’s only manufacturer of aperture cards. Say what?! After embracing this fact through fantasies of royal successions (because the Wicks division is located in the U.K. and after binge-watching “The Crown”…
Beauty is in the Eye of the Camera: Crowley Advances Imaging Services
What makes a “good” image? It is a universally acknowledged truth in our modern culture that good images are not blurry, have some sort of composition and do not have a finger in the shot (a fact never mentioned to my grandmother). While the subject matter and composition of a good image are often up for debate, the technical specifications are not, especially in regard to archival imaging. Technical guidelines such as the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) and Metamorfoze…
Happy Hanksgiving, Part Four
What a difference four years makes! When we first followed Hank, the beloved English bulldog of Crowley’s technical support administrator, Cassie Hahn, around the halls of Crowley three years ago he was a small ball of pudge waddling past adoring employees and modeling atop patron book scanners. Since then, Hank and Crowley have come together each “Hanksgiving” to reflect on the many things for which we at Crowley are thankful (and this year we’ve added Hank’s thanks as well). We…
Dear Mother: A Look at WWII Through the Eyes of One Family
Many stories of heroism and national pride are brought back from war. More often than not, the airwaves are filled with the loudest stories: soldiers bravely flying the skies, nurses fighting the needs of their own bodies to save others and great minds working to break enemy codes. The quieter stories of everyday life during wartime are often overlooked, but are just as heroic. Such is the case with the Minker family of Wilmington, Delaware. Their story is one told…
Life in the Fast (Scanning) Lane: Digitizing History Rapidly with the UScan+
If there is one thing you can say about Kenneth Shelton, it is that he is passionate about history . . . specifically, the history of his family’s hometown in South Carolina. This was remarkably clear to me when I first read about the volunteer scanning work Ken has been doing for the Fairfield County South Carolina Museum and Historical Society. We’re celebrating American Archives Month by sharing the story of Ken’s digitization efforts and dedication to preserving the past….
Old Media in a New Age: Newspapers Go Digital in Latest Case Study
Newspapers have great significance in modern societies around the world. Their thin pages have distributed our world’s heaviest news – the sinking of the Titanic, Kennedy’s assassination, September 11th – and have also followed slightly lighter stories such as the discovery of Big Foot (originally reported in 1858 as “wild people”). Either way, newspapers have been and will continue to be a gateway into today and a crucial key to the past. From the humble origins of handwritten newsletters distributed…
The Cold War in Hotlanta: Crowley and Princeton Discuss Digitization Project at SAA
Last week I traveled to the Society of American Archivists annual conference in Atlanta, Ga to hear Crowley Senior Imaging Specialist, Meghan Wyatt, and Princeton University Library Archivist, Rachel Van Unen, discuss the digitization of Seeley G. Mudd Library’s Cold War manuscripts. In the coming weeks you will be able to hear the discussion for yourself in Crowley’s first podcast. For now, get a taste of the project and the partnership between Crowley Imaging and Princeton University Libraries. Project Origins In…
Determining the Best Method for Scanning Bound Materials
We’ve addressed the issue of book scanning methods in a previous blog, however the information bears repeating. Books are still one of the world’s most popular methods of information recording, but paper (or even in its earliest forms, papyrus or rice paper) is not the most resilient of materials. It is for this reason that digitization is essential to extending the lifespan of the precious words and images held within their covers. The options for scanning bound materials are numerous…