Contents:
- 0. Executive summary
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Determining digitisation goals
- 3. Developing a project plan
- 4. Defining the selection
- 5. Clearing copyright
- 6. Analysing the artworks and contextual documents to be digitised
- 7. Preparing the artworks to be digitised
- 8. Defining quality parameters
- 9. Digitisation
- 10. Digital restoration
- 11. Quality control
- 12. Creating access copies
- 13. Submitting the digital files to the digital archive
- 14. Making the digital files available for online access
- 15. References
- Annex I: Digitisation Plan
- Annex II: Explanation of fields used in the tables
- Annex III: Feedback to D4.1
- Annex IV: Glossary
This deliverable from the DCA project presents a best practice, step-by-step guide through the various stages of the digitisation process for contemporary artworks. It is meant to serve as a reference for collection caretakers (in- and outside museums). The guidelines concern three categories of works: 1. artworks (and contextual documents) for which the digitisation results will be an image file – this group consists of for instance paintings, drawings, photographs, text documents, artist books, sculptures and installations. For this group the “digitisation” focuses on digital reproduction photography and, to a lesser degree, on scanning; 2. artworks (and contextual documents) for which the digitisation results will be a moving image file – this group mainly consists of video works and documents; 3. artworks (and contextual objects) for which the digitisation results will be an audio file – this group mainly consists of audio works and documents. The digitisation workflow description is based on the digitisation expertise of the DCA partners and targets collection caretakers with less experience in digitisation. It starts with how to determine digitisation goals, then proceeds with the selection and the preparation of the artworks or contextual documents, clearing copyright, the definition of the quality parameters, the actual conversion from analogue to digital and the quality control of the digital files. Finally, it touches briefly upon long-term storage and making the digital content accessible; however these topics are treated in greater detail in the project deliverable D6.1 and D6.2. In the section about the conversion from analogue to digital (the actual digitisation), different best practices concerning the choice of the file format, resolution, bit depth, colour profile, are listed for the various types of artworks (and contextual documents). The technical specifications are matched to practical workflows per file type so they can be put into practice easily. A template for developing a digitisation plan was issued by DCA’s work package 2 and completed by all content partners. It is incorporated in this deliverable as an annex. Other annexes include a glossary and feedback from DCA partners concerning an internal deliverable (D4.1 Digitisation workflow description for digitizing) and how it had been useful to them, as well as the practical problems they have encountered in the course of the process of digitising their collections.
This is another clearly written and very useful deliverable from the DCA project. The sections on selection, copyright and in-house vs outsourcing are comprehensive and it includes a nice discussion on the tricky subject of determining ‘value’. It goes into the most detail when describing how to digitise the category one materials (paintings, drawings, photographs, text documents, artist books, sculptures and installations) that involves digital reproduction photography. Information on the actual digitising of audiovisual carriers is helpful but not exhaustive as the authors recommend that this be out-sourced; thus, more detailed information can be found in other resources. However, it does include enough about the quality parameters and technical specifications for audiovisual material and all the other topics covered in the guidelines are relevant for audiovisual material. There are also lots of good references throughout the paper. The report is highly recommended reading for staff about to plan a digitisation project with any of these types of materials.