Haiku

Let it be resolved.

Performance not being met?

… stay focused, my friends

While in Lisbon two weeks ago, I was struck by this illusion of waves in Rossio Square (which many others have noted, of course). Even when standing on the flat surface, things appear undulating if you look away from your feet.

What I also find as interesting, when reviewing my photos is the impression that the walking family appears to have been added from another image. That being my ‘explanation’ for the illusion. They were not. Seeing is not always believing.

Praca Dom Pedro IV (Rossio Square), Lisbon, Portugal

Imaging Performance for Cultural Institutions:  Guidelines for measurement of imaging performance are often presented at IS&T’s Conferences, and Archiving 2016 will be no exception. Recent developments have included US FADGI (Federal Agencies Digital Guidelnes Initiative), led by the Library of Congress’s Office of Strategic Services. In addition, National Library of the Netherlands has publish the Metamorfoze Preservation Imaging Guidelines.

Milford and Pembrokeshire Bank cheque, 1809, courtesy of Mrs. Winifred Joyce Burns

FADGI Comments Invited: An updated version was posted for comments a few days ago. According to the editor, Tom Rieger ( US Library of Congress), ‘Our goal is to create a system that can be easily understood and implemented … from the largest institutions to the smallest historical societies.’

FADGI & Courses at Archiving 2016: These guidelines and imaging standards, and how they are applied will be covered in short courses presented by Don Williams and me at the conference next April in Washington DC. We have fun presenting and leading a seminar-style discussion.

More Information:
Archiving 2016
FADGI Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials
Metamorfoze Preservation Imaging Guidelines

IS&T is organizing the Archiving 2016 Conference, to held in Washington DC next April. Topics range from creating and managing collections, to technology and standards for digital (e.g. images) objects. The abstract deadline in 4 Oct. 2015. Info. here

UV image reveals regions of the Magna Carta

Multispectral Imaging : One topic for this conference is multispectral imaging. For example, at Archiving 2015, Fanella France (US Library of Congress) presented on Integrated Heritage Science Datasets. These often  include multispectral image records, and the results of technical analyses based on them.

British Library: Results from multispectral imaging of the 800 year old Magna Carta were on display at the recently completed exhibition at the British Library. This was carried out by the Centre for Conservation and the Scientific Research Lab., and is described by Christina Duffy, here.

The Laboratory uses a MegaVison (exhibitor at Archiving 2015) camera with 14 spectral bands from near ultraviolet to near infrared.

From the Hebraic Manuscript Digitisation Project, the British Library

Connection: Archiving 2016 will be held in the Archives 1 Building in Washington DC, where the US Constitution and Bill of Rights are displayed. Both were influenced by the Magna Carta and part of the Magna Carta: Law Liberty, Legacy exhibition. I was rather surprised that two of King John’s teeth were also on display in London. I understand they were removed post-mortem, so they are not the result of early English dentistry.

Further information:
Archiving 2016 Conference, 19-22 April 2016
US Labrary of Congress, Multi- and Hyperspectral Imaging

IS&T will again be organizing the Archiving 2016 Conference in Washington DC next April. Topics range from creating and managing collections, to technology and standards for digital (e.g. images) objects. The abstract deadline in 4 Oct. 2015. Info. here

Third Ave. Bridge collection

Case Studies: Conference discussions will also include case studies from large and small institutions and municipalities. A good example of which is the effort to organize and digitize the historical material from the old Minneapolis Municipal Information Library, which closed in 2003.

The project was lead by Josh Schaffer, Minneapolis city records manager. The posted material is thanks in part to students from St. Catherine University’s library and information science program and  the city’s Urban Scholars summer internship program . Here is the article from MPRnews

Unusual Examples from those posted on flickr
– Putting out fires in front of crowds of nuns
– Fire engines full of clowns
– The search for Miss Fire Fighter 1958
and I also recommend checking out the collection of aerial views of the city.

‘Successful rescue’ is the posted caption, but I was thinking ‘What, me worry’ or ‘Safe as houses’

Photos.  courtesy of City of Minneapolis Archives

IS&T’s Electronic Imaging Symposium 2016 will be held 14-18 Eeb. 2016 in San Francisco, and  is now accepting submissions to present and publish your work. The invitation to participate in the Image Quality and System Performance Conference is here.

As you will see, suggested topics include three general areas

• Image quality objective and subjective evaluation
• Performance measurement and modeling
• Standards for image quality and system performance

For presentation and publication, the submission deadline is 15 July 2015

More information on the symposium and other conferences within the symposium is available here

For your consideration.
ACROSS
1     Sets international colour standards
3     Another name for an imaging test target (rhymes with cart)
6     Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies (acronym)
9     From the books (Latin)
10  Multi-headed snake
11  This core is not named after an Irish city
13  Craquelures are seen in this type of painting
14  Monochrome, color, multi spectral, ____ spectral
16  When describing opportunities for funding, a speaker was heard to say ‘I smell a _____’
18  Before there was digital, there was _____

DOWN
1     Care and feeding of collections
2     Site of Archiving 2014
4     Document format that is both human and machine readable, used across the Internet
5     imaging.org (initials)
7     For imaging projects it is good to ‘scan but ______’
8     Suggested US federal imaging practice for heritage imaging
12  Information about a dataset is often called _____data
14  ‘Trusted’ shared digital repository
15  Den Haag in English, The _______
17  Oldest photographic society (initials)

Printable Version

Presentation at IS&T’s Archiving 2015 Conference at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
To request full proceedings paper, please request using comment form below.
– Peter Burns

Guinea Bank note, 1802

Don Williams and I will be presenting our new half-day course, Ten Commandments of Good Scanner & Camera Imaging Performance on 19 May, as part of IS&T’s Archiving 2015 Conference in Los Angeles. We will focus on simple and achievable tools/techniques to build a solid digital imaging foundation for museums and archives.

Our informal seminar-style course usually includes about a dozen participants, so we can discuss specific topics that come up. For example, US Federal (FADGI) and European Metamorfoze guidelines.

Since we present in the morning, those interested might consider also attending a more detailed course on the Metamorfoze Preservation Imaging Guidelines, presented by Hans van Dormolen in the afternoon.

IS&T’s Archiving Conference at the Getty Museum, 19-22 May 2015 info. here

Thanks to all involved. Splendid time was had.