Abstract
With some five million collections items comprising art, film, photographs, sound, new media, writings and objects, the possibilities which digitization opens up for the Imperial War Museums (IWM) are only limited by the imagination: new ways of reaching and engaging with audiences, slicker commercial activities, online access to superbly restored film and photographic images. But without the financial clout of a Google-style business, and where systems and standards are still very much in development, heritage institutions struggle to bridge the gulf between aspiration and reality. Hiding behind the term digitization lies a mass of activities and responsibilities, all critical to its success. With several years of experience of digitizing anything from posters to motion picture film, and of capturing high-quality digital images of a range of objects from medals to missiles, IWM has now learnt, often the hard way, most of the lessons.
Highlights
With some five million collections items comprising art, film, photographs, sound, new media, writings and objects, the possibilities which digitization opens up for the Imperial War Museums (IWM) are only limited by the imagination: new ways of reaching and engaging with audiences, slicker commercial activities, online access to superbly restored film and photographic images
One question that is often asked at IWM is, “I suppose everything is digitized isn’t it?” People become crestfallen when we tell them that only a small percentage of the entire collection is online
A fundamental question is to decide which parts of the collection require digitization to preservation standards, and which are strictly for access, which is not to say that digitization for preservation necessarily results in a better all-round asset: a high resolution digital scan of a photographic negative may be a near-perfect digital simulacrum of that negative, but in its raw form will be less suitable for image sales than a lower resolution scan which has been colour-matched and digitally retouched to a high finish
Summary
One question that is often asked at IWM is, “I suppose everything is digitized isn’t it?” People become crestfallen when we tell them that only a small percentage of the entire collection is online. Digitization frequently has to operate in an environment where systems and equipment are not primarily designed for heritage work Where such standards exist, they are usually conceived according to what is possible rather than what is desirable. Techniques for the digitization of, for example, audio recordings are well established internationally, and are available[1], those for digitization of photographs are less well defined, and likely to be based on each institution’s own working practices Defining such aspects as formats, sizes, degree of optimization, etc., can be a fraught process in which one quickly discovers that every user’s needs are different: exhibition planners need wall-sized blow-ups, researchers want rapid access to instant images, commercial departments are after beautifully finished products to sell at a premium. They all want their chosen output in a hurry, regardless of whether or not the original item requires specialist expertise, which may be anything from the attentions of a conservator to a careful unpicking of the multiple elements which form the original masters of a film
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