CIDC,
in conjunction with the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, began in January
1998 an ambitious two-year project to prepare digital surrogates for
up to 85% of the items in the Museum.
A digital photo studio was selected and installed, and two digital
photographers, a part-time
systems support specialist, and two catalogers were hired to capture the
images, prepare derivatives suitable for delivery on the Web, and provide
access points that will make searching for images possible. In 2000 a second camera was donated to the Museum and installed. The
project has begun with the works on paper, the heart of the museum’s holdings. The
print collection is recognized as one of the most outstanding print collections owned by a
university and is already heavily used in support of teaching and research. Once the print
collection is digitized, the project will move onto three-dimensional objects, and other
holdings.
To date, the following has been accomplished:
- Converted the small percentage of the collection already captured on traditional
photographic media to digital format.
- Over the period of two years made digital surrogates of
about 16,000 works.
- Captured images at a resolution high enough to permit printing on a 9 x 12"
200 line-screen press, such as are used to produce a coffee-table art book. Images
were shot with a minimum of 24-bit color, and color bars were included in each shot to
facilitate color balance processing when printing.
- Digital photography should in no way damage the original objects. The Museum, therefore, worked with conservators from the Williamstown Conservation Lab to certify that the
procedures used to convert the objects to digital form, and particular the lights used
when shooting, were not harmful to the objects.
- Prepared at least two derivatives from the high resolution scan
for browsing and classroom work over the internet.
- Moved descriptions of the works from an existing internal database
within the museum into an Internet-accessible database for browsing and searching.
- In order to meet its ambitious time-frame explored methods to
efficiently capture, migrate, and store the digital images.
By putting the collection online, students, faculty, visitors, and
users on the Internet will have access to the riches of one of the
country’s major university museums, only a fraction of which can be
exhibited at any one time. Once
converted and accessible, the digital collection can be integrated into
Cornell’s curriculum, and planning is underway on how the museum images
could be used in local public schools.
CIDC’s
direct involvement with the project ended on 1 January 2000, though the
Museum has been able to keep aspects of the project in place with their
own funding. Through constant refinement of the workflow and equipment, a daily
throughput rate was achieved that to our knowledge no other museum has
been able to match. The
project remains a model for other institutions to follow.
Museum Online Workflow