'Collections and Digital Initiatives‘Museum & Gallery Services QueenslandThursday 15 October 2pm-5pm

State Library of Queensland’s HeritageCollection digitisation projects:The Curse and it’s Cure

Christine IannaManager, Publications Reformattingchristine.ianna@slq.qld.gov.au

OVERVIEW

1.Scope of SLQ Heritage Collections

2. Digitising Options

3. Assessment of capacity of Kirtas®Automated High Speed Book Scanner

4. A case study -The Curse and It’s Cure byDr T.P.Lucas –digitised and discoverableon-line

5. The Future!!

1. SLQ's Heritage collections

۩John Oxley Library, established in 1934

• ~9,000 collections of written and printedoriginal materials

• ~346,893 published materials (as a minimum)• ~67,250 music scores• ~4,263 hymns

• ~ 1million+ pictures/slides

2. Digitising Options۩ Internal

Camera• Image taken from above• Suitable for fragile items• Varying qualities depending on camera and

operator capability

flat bed scanner• Object required to be scanned face down• Convenient but not necessarily to a standard• Not suitable for fragile bound pages• Relatively slow

2. Digitising Options

۩ ExternalOverhead ‘book’ scanners

• Book eye®, ATIZ® etc― Books can remain bound― Split platen/cradle supports spine of book

to minimise damage

Automated Book Scanner• Kirtas®― High speed scanner― 90o book cradle mechanism minimises

damage― Books can remain bound

Books selected* for trial-

Variety of sizesTextText & imagesColour combinationsAssorted bindings+ Out of copyright

3. Assessment of capacity of Kirtas®Automated High Speed Book Scanner

3. The Kirtas® Automated High Speed Book Scanner

۩ Turns pages using a slight vacuum

۩ Operator experience essential

۩ Not able to scan loose pages or

۩ Not able to scan fold out inserts

۩ Digital files produced include

Archive TIFs

Research JPGs

Searchable PDFs

Thumbnail

4. A case study

۩ First title loaded to SLQ website

The Curse and It’s CureAuthor Dr T.P.Lucaspublished in two volumes in 1894One of the first novels set in BrisbaneVery brittleToo fragile to allow access

4. The Curse and It’s Cure

۩ Going Live!

Archive TIF, Research JPGs, Searchable PDFsand Thumbnail files Ingested into Digitool

Now discoverable by ‘One search’ Links included in bibliographic record Searchable PDF version online Thumbnail display Can be viewed as a virtual book

**Interestingly ‘went live’ during the BrisbaneWriter’s festival and proved more popular with SLQtwitter clients than the recent dust storms

Digitisation

۩BenefitsAvailable to anyone around the worldClients can now print pages & illustrations (especially where they couldn’t copy before)Provides searchable text saves hoursReduces handling of fragile items and minimises damage

BUT………

Digitisation۩ Lessons

Do it once!

Do it well!

Collaborate- don’t reinvent the wheelKnow where to find it- sort the metadata and file names out beforehandClarify copyright

Attribute ownership

THE FUTURE?? Already there’s a book scanner being developed by the

Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory in Tokyo can reportedlydigitize at 1000 frames-per-second. A Japanese TVstation story on this new technology is impressive even ifyou don't speak Japanesehttp://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/wbs/trend_tamago/tt_154.html

Or perhaps the Video: Espresso Book Machine 2.0 anautomated book-making machine where an operatorselects a title to print, and within a few minutes a bookemerges, with full-colour cover, trimmed to an exact size,and indistinguishable from the publisher’s version- truly“Hot off the press!”http://www.ondemandbooks.com/video2.htm

In the meantime:۩ Keep up to date with our new publications as they golive by subscribing to SLQ newsletter/rss /twitter feeds

Questions?