Posts Tagged ‘Digitization hardware’
The Benefits of Choosing Preservation-Grade Hardware
Preservation-grade is more than just a marketing phrase. Not all scanners are equal. For cultural heritage, government records, or institutional archives, “good enough” isn’t enough. Preservation-grade is a term that often appears in archival conservation, but it also can apply to digital preservation. The word preservation means keeping something safe from harm and in its original state. In conservation, preservation-grade materials and techniques do this by protecting, storing, or displaying items for long-term stability and minimal deterioration. Digital preservation aids…
Preserving Nitrate Film Archives with End-to-End Digitization
Motion picture film has documented some of the most important cultural, scientific and historical moments of the past century. But many of the earliest films, and countless photographic negatives, were created on a medium that presents preservation challenges: nitrate film. Used widely from the late 19th century through the early 1950s, nitrate film offered excellent image quality but came with a major drawback. It is chemically unstable and highly flammable. Over time, nitrate film can deteriorate to the point where images…
Christmas: A Tale of Two Censuses
A Once in a Lifetime Records Opportunity: Scanning the 1921 Census of England and Wales Regardless of how you celebrate the holidays, did it ever occur to you that the very first Christmas was driven by a records manager and a census (with a little divine inspiration)? While census records have changed a lot in the centuries since the birth of Jesus, the information is still critical and its absence can be devastating. Case in point: the 1921 England and…