With such a fantastic effort from the Novocastrians on a recent “Can you date?” we thought we’d challenge you with another Newcastle-themed photo!
This is an aerial view of Lee Wharf in Newcastle.
Can you date this photograph?
We have many other undated photographs in Photo Investigator and on our Flickr account. If know the dates or any other interesting facts about these images please let us know.
We’ve had several requests to convert our five-part digitisation series into a downloadable format. Thanks to everyone who commented, tweeted (loved the Spanish versions of the post titles) and shared the posts.
There is a new page where you can download PDF versions individually or grab the zip file of all five parts. The new page links from the main Resources page.
Good luck with your digitisation!
Selena Williams is an Archivist and Research Assistant working on the Australian Research Council Linkage Project Soldier Settlement: ‘A Land fit for Heroes’?
Australian rural history has essentially been the history of men. Yet the economic survival of farms and particularly those settled by returned soldiers after World War One was dependent on the work on the farm being undertaken by both husband and wife. A wife’s contribution to the farm was vital, not only inside the home but outside as well. Nevertheless this was in many ways seen as secondary to the work undertaken by their husbands.
State Records NSW holds thousands of files generated by the Department of Lands and the Returned Soldiers Settlement Board after World War One. Yet, with only a few exceptions, these files do not mention how the women in the family contributed to the economic survival of the farm and the general well-being of the family, albeit as wife, mother or daughter. This has been due in some part to farming being traditionally defined as typically Australian with the farmer tough and strong – a bushman and country man. This patriarchal definition of farming therefore places a divide between the public one of the farm and the private one of the home and family, contributing to the stories of women married to soldier settlers being unwritten, undisclosed and unacknowledged.
Searches through many hundreds of boxes of archival documents tell of the difficult circumstances of the husband on his block … his struggles with debt, the death of stock, floods, drought or pests, with limited reference to the women in the family or what they did on the farm, day by day. Occasionally, requests for financial support were directed to the Department of Lands by the settler himself – asking for financial support for his wife and children. Only occasionally, are the individual voices of wives or mothers of soldier settlers heard in the files. This may have occurred when they wrote to the Department on behalf of a husband or son who was working away from the block, who was ill, or illiterate.
Life was not easy for most women living on a soldier settlement block and this is exemplified in the following brief accounts. The wife of William John Rutledge (who was judged to be lazy by the Closer Settlement Board) was ‘the mainstay of the block – without her help they would be in dire circumstances’.[1] Jessie Robertson was another, she intended continuing on their block alone after her husband died from war wounds in 1926. In 1927 when money was short, she said,
‘I (am) compelled to meet pressing accounts out of my own slender private resources’.[2]
Amy, the wife of Benjamin Sweetland whose health was far from normal due to his war injuries, had power of attorney so that she could handle their farming affairs.[3] Another wife of a soldier settler, Jessie Sheldon wrote in 1924 while her husband was in hospital receiving treatment for war wounds,
‘I, with my little baby am keeping the home fires burning’.[4]
So, while the number of these voices are limited, with much of the detail of their life and stories remaining undisclosed, it is clear that these women were strong, resilient and resourceful and that their contribution to the running of the farm vital to its survival.
These stories are a few of the many thousands, but they indicate so much about the contribution of women on a soldier settlement block. It is hoped that now as there is more access to archival documentation about soldier settlement created after World War One that more similar stories will be revealed about the contribution of these women to soldier settlement blocks. Their lives in the years after World War One as the wives of returned soldiers was also at times difficult due to the ongoing and long term physical and mental injuries suffered by many of their husbands during the war. This created for many women an added burden. The work by these women on soldier settlement blocks will therefore be continually recognised and acknowledged as a vital part of Australian rural history.
[1] SRNSW: Returned Soldiers Settlement Loan Files, NRS 8058, William John Rutledge, [12/6971 No. 3918]
[2] Ibid, Loan file, Edye Robertson, [12/6876 No. 2514]
[3] Ibid, Loan file Benjamin Sweetland, [12/6968 No. 3862]
[4] Ibid, Loan file Lionel Sheldon, [12/6889 No. 2866]
The billowing smoke of industry welcomes steamers as they enter Newcastle Harbour.
Can you date this photograph?
We have many other undated photographs in Photo Investigator and on our Flickr account. If know the dates or any other interesting facts about these images please let us know.
We’ve reached the fifth and final post in the digitisation blog series. To date we’ve covered project planning, the golden rule of digitisation, technical specifications and hands-on tips for scanning. In this post we will look at quality control checks, metadata and access.
Much of this advice is from an article State Records staff wrote for History Magazine. We have also included examples in this post so you can see our metadata and access in action.
To help catch and rectify flaws early in the scanning process include image quality assurance checks in your workflow. Make sure to check both image files and metadata.
A simple way to ensure each quality test measures the same parameters is to use a check-list. At a minimum checks should include:
Metadata is essential to the ongoing use and management of digital images.
It is the structured data about data: the who, what, where and when. Metadata plays a vital part in any digitisation program.
There are two types of metadata:
Metadata brings context to the digital files and helps makes them ‘discoverable’ when searching online.
A good place to start is the Dublin Core Metadata Schema and the AGLS Metadata Standard.
You mightn’t recognise it as metadata but there’s a strong possibility you apply it to your personal archives. Have you ever scanned the old family photos? Questions arise: who’s that in the photo, when was this taken, where was it taken? You tag, title and keyword your digital image so you can easily find it again et voilà, you have your first set of metadata.
A metadata record has a number of pre-defined elements representing values of a resource, and each element can have one or more values (an example is below).
Each digital record must have a unique identifier to distinguish it from other records. The unique identifier connects the digital image to the original archive and should be meaningful.
In general, file names should:
12685_a007_00000456.jpg = series_job number_numerical order
Distinguishing the metadata of derivative files from the master files is just as important. This is how we append our derivative versions:
12685_a007_00000456t.jpg
(thumbnail images display in Photo Investigator search results)
The technical metadata – or properties – of a digital file can be automatically captured from digitisation equipment. Technical metadata includes:
In the State Records image database, Photo Investigator, we use eight values which includes caption (a title), digital id (a unique identifier) date, format and size of the original image, and record series.
Image and image metadata
We’ve been experimenting with the ‘Notes’ field to add other metadata discovered by members of the public. For example, via our Moments in Time blog series and Flickr photostream we have been able to annotate previously undated and unidentified images with new information/metadata that has been researched by web visitors.
Quality control checks and metadata are intertwined. At State Records two staff members are involved in these tasks:
Information about collection management systems for digital records appears in the article ‘Archival Data’ by our very own Dr Kate Cumming which appeared in June issue of History.
If you are planning to display your images online there are several ways you can do this. We are using State Records examples below:
Tilly Devine Gallery
Food, Glorious Food Gallery
State Records 50th Anniversary Gallery
Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Historypin – there are loads of social media sites you can be a part of. Connect directly with users of your archives and promote your collection/organisation along the way.
Sneak peek! The first installment of our digital Blue Mountains Gallery is now available – Crossing the Blue Mountains gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/index.php/gall…
— State Records NSW (@srnsw) November 1, 2012
I could have sworn they said there was a spare tyre#archives flickr.com/photos/2733153…
— State Records NSW (@srnsw) October 14, 2012
Screenshot of a Flickr set
Brisbane Street, Tamworth on Historypin
One of the most valuable ways of learning about digitisation is to see what others have done. In this series we’ve covered project planning; techs and specs; tips for scanning (including the Golden Rule); quality control checks and metadata; and, displaying your digital archives online.
There are a number of recognised guidelines which you can consult for each step in your digitisation program:
We hope you have found our starter’s guide to digitisation useful. Good luck!
In honour of Halloween lets take a look back at an old post about the story of Fishers Ghost
Want to hear a ghost story? Well, make yourself comfortable.
The origin of this story dates back 184 years, to 1826. When murderous intent was nigh…
Frederick Fisher and George Worrell were the best of friends and worked a farm in Campbelltown. George Worrell (or Worrall) was a waggoner from Cheshire who had been transported for life to New South Wales. He arrived in 1813 on the Earl Spencer. In 1818, when he was 31 years old he petitioned for and received a Ticket of Leave – the petition described him as being of “Industrious habits, and of an honest Character….and Sober”…
Nova Scotia Archives has tweeted a Halloween Challenge. Is anyone willing to try and recreate this photo?
The State Library of NSW has more than 1 million photographs in our collection, including theearliest known photograph taken in Australia (1845). The Library also has a Flickr Commons account where many of our images can be viewed. In the process of testing social media tools for delivering library services we thought Historypin offered something different…
Pinterest is almost completely visually oriented, so whether or not Pinterest would be useful for genealogy would seem to be a really good question. Pinterest is the one of the newest social networking websites, but has grown rapidly into one of the most popular sites.
As a profession we urgently need to start mythbusting. I think we need to start countering the negative myths and stereotypes that are surrounding our role because persistent myths and stereotypes about records management are starting to threaten business information.
Do you love postcards, cigarette and trade cards? Then the website of the New South Wales Postcard Collectors Society Inc. could be the place for you.
Postcards, Cigarette and Trade cards:
* depict almost every aspect of human activity, endeavour and interest.
* provide vivid and often attractive images of great relevance to a very wide range of people with interests as diverse as local history, military and naval history, Australiana, advertising, sports such as cricket or football, art nouveau, entertainment, ethnography, anthropology, railways, shipping, aviation, fantasy, children’s art, animals and birds (both domestic and wild), glamour, humour, rural life and traditional industries such as timber, mining, wheat and wool, fine arts and crafts.
Rob Johnson from The National Archives (United Kingdom) examines the art of appraisal for both house movers and recordkeepers alike.
Anyone who has moved house will understand that when it comes to the logistics, size really does matter. Because my new home is smaller than the last, I had to ‘appraise’ my belongings to determine their value, and dispose of items accordingly.
As I sat there on a dusty floor with a bin bag, I realised that my home and working lives had suddenly collided…
The process of knowing what you have and how valuable it may be is fundamental to Information Management. Records ‘appraisal’ is a core part keeping an organisation running efficiently – without knowing what value your records hold, useless stuff will clog up your cupboards and servers, whilst useful information remains inaccessible and unexploited.
How did I know what to keep ahead of the big move? Today’s blog is about the types of value Government records and my ‘stuff’ at home may have in common…
A large goal for cultural heritage institutions should be to support the engagement of the community and to work with appropriate people in schools to support common interests. I have spent my career on the cultural heritage side, reaching out to schools and others to demonstrate what resources such institutions can share. I am now on the other side, but remain dedicated to the idea of promoting the value of museum, libraries and archives.
So far in this digitisation blog series we’ve covered program planning, the golden rule of digitisation, the heady world of techs and specs and now we come to practical tips for image capture.
For general handling of archives see our post Moving and handling – the Basics. Most of the tips below are from our reading room posters that were designed for researchers wishing to scan or photograph archives.
See also care and handling guidelines from the National Library of Australia which includes information on glass plate negatives and transparencies.
Items smaller than the bed of the scanner:
When fastened at the corner:
When fastened along the edge:
These objects require special handling to prevent damage and to provide the best quality copy image.
Photographic materials contain silver compounds and sensitive dyes that are very susceptible to damage from the oils and acids in our skin.
Maps and plans can be large and unwieldy, and come on varied supports, including paper and plastic.
Capture the edges of the photograph (where possible) to show that the image has not been cropped in any way. The original photos won’t necessarily have square edges so this technique will also ensure no information is left out.
Some photos in our collection have decorative supports (see photo of the doctor below) and some are housed in – or have been glued into – photo albums (see the album below).
Will you include these ‘extras’ in the digitised version? At State Records we do; it ensures the item has been captured in its entirety. Does the backing also need scanning? Check for information that may be relevant to the archive and scan if necessary.
Framing of pictures and text on reverse of image. Dr Lawrence William Cock, dated March 1903 Digital ID 9873_a025_a025000097
In a recently digitised photographic series at State Records the photos were stored in albums. We scanned the album page in full and then the images separately.
Showing full page scan of album plus individual photo from the album page
In the next – and final – post we look at quality control, metadata and access.
Bustling Summer Street in Orange, NSW. There are quite a lot of clues in this image that might help to uncover when this photograph was taken.
Can you date this photograph?
We have many other undated photographs in Photo Investigator and on our Flickr account. If know the dates or any other interesting facts about these images please let us know.
You now know all about the Golden Rule of Digitisation and your plan is starting to come together. In this post we are talking techs and specs such as: image capture; technical definitions; standards and storage.
This is the third post in a series about starting a digitisation program. The series covers: project planning; technical specifications; handling the archives; scanning tips; file storage, and; access.
In this post:
I’d like to thank our photographer, Tara Majoor, for her time, knowledge and contribution to this post.
Warning: we tried to keep this as basic as possible and link out to more in-depth information but you might want to grab a coffee for this one. Alternatively, if you need some bedtime reading…
In our last post you learnt the Golden Rule of Digitisation and the importance of creating a master file (from which derivatives files are made). As you’ll recall, master files are the original files created during the image capture process: the aim of a master file is to be of a high enough quality to meet your organisation’s access and/or preservation needs, both now and in the future.
In order to meet your digitisation goals you need to make some basic decisions relating to image specifications before you begin capturing images. And, more than likely, because of the differences in the original formats (including fragile records, large maps etc) you will need a set of specifications.
It is the unique characteristic of each archive that will often necessitate different approaches to image capture.
For example:
The main goal when defining your technical specifications is to create the best digital image possible, given the resources available. A basic understanding of the core imaging principles/concepts will assist in this all important decision-making process.
Resolution, bit-depth (colour depth) and colour management make up the core of a digital image. These core ingredients can contain variable amounts of data depending on your selected input parameters – specifications. You should also take time to consider an archival file type for your master files, and determine what compression (if any) you wish to use.
Bit depth, colour management resolution, compression, what the heck is it all about? Please allow us to shed some light on the situation (thanks Tara).
A digital image is a structured matrix (or grid) of tiny squares known as pixels (picture elements). Each of these pixels has an assigned tonal value and when viewed in combination with surrounding pixels form the illusion of a continuous tone image.
Image resolution is simply a measurement of the density (or number) of pixels within the digital image. It describes the amount of detail encoded within a digital image. In the scanning world, resolution is a representation of the number of samples taken from the analogue original (photograph, document etc). In general, a greater number a samples (or higher resolution) should result in a more representative digital surrogate.
Resolution can be measured using two methods. In most software programs these are referred to as pixel dimensions and document size/pixels per inch.
Pixel dimensions (also known as pixel array) – makes reference to the number of pixels in the matrix arrangement (array) horizontally and vertically.
For example:
Document size/pixels per inch – resolution is most commonly expressed in pixels per inch (ppi) and measures the number of pixels per square inch.
For example:
Pixel per inch (ppi) is a variable measurement and is dependent on knowing the size of overall the image; without this scale (or magnification ratio) the measurement loses context.
[You might be familiar with the term dots per inch (dpi) and while the two terms are often interchangeable dpi refers to printed resolution whereas ppi refers to the pixels within the digital image file].
Here is a plan from our collection (University Hotel, Parramatta Road, Glebe 1890). Take note of the horse bottom right.
Below is a close-up of the horse and shows three derivatives from the one master file. The higher the resolution, the greater the (uncompressed) file size – from 300ppi for printing down to 75ppi for web delivery.
A common misconception is that scanning at the highest resolution available will always produce the best quality images. Whilst it is true that the amount of detail captured within an image is controlled through resolution there are some factors to be wary of such as interpolated resolution (see below).
And of course, the higher the resolution at which you scan the bigger the file size and this will impact on your storage options (we’ll get to that later).
Interpolation is not desirable, especially for digitisation practices as it can degrade image quality.
Tip: Take note of your scanner’s optical resolution, and only scan up to the optical limit.
Which leads us to another question…
Consult your scanner’s manual (search online if you don’t have one). To make life extra confusing optical resolution can be expressed in either pixel per inch (where scale = 1:1) or pixel dimensions. When presented in pixel dimensions the smallest value represents ppi at a 1:1 ratio.
For example:
This is the measurement of the number of bits – or binary digits – devoted to storing the colour information about each pixel. The number of bits available determines the maximum possible range of colours and luminosity values (or grey shades) that can be represented within an image’s colour space or palette.
For instance, in a one bit image, each pixel is stored as a single bit (0 or 1) so there are only two digits available (black [0] or white [1]).
The formula for calculating bit-depth is: 2^(number of bit) = number of grey shades. So, for instance, in a one bit image, each pixel is stored as a single bit (0 or 1) meaning there are only two digits available (black [0] or white [1]).
In the image below you can see:
A 24-bit colour image comprises of 8-bits of information for each of the red, green and blue (RGB) channels; so for each pixel there is 8 levels of red, 8 levels of green and 8 levels of blue:
The palette of colours increases to:
Down sampling – some scanners may present options such as 48-24(bit) or 36-24(bit). The higher figure is the depth at which the scanner samples the raw data; the software then converts this value into a lower bit-depth (the lower figure) which becomes the final bit-depth of the exported image.
| Depth | No. of Tones | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1-bit Bi-tonal | 2 | Monochrome – contains only black (0) and white (1) pixels. Useful when digitising clear printed/typed text documents/publications. |
| 8-bit Greyscale | 256 | Describes the number of pixels required for continuous tone greyscale, black and white plus a large range of intermediate greys |
| 16-bit Greyscale | 65,536 | 16-bit greyscale uses an extended colour space, creating a much larger file (double 8-bit), and requiring storage in formats that explicitly support this colour depth (TIF). |
| 8-bit Colour*(VGA) | 256 | This colour mode was used heavy in early digital graphics, and it still sometimes used by web designers. This depth is NOT suitable for digitisation as it does not create True-tone Images. |
| 24-bit Colour | 16.7 Million | 24-bit colour is the current standard, supported by a wide range of file formats and implication. It comprises of 8-bits of information for the red, green and blue (RGB) values. |
| 48-bit Colour | 281 Trillion | 48-bit colour (16-bit per RGB channel) uses an extended colour space (trillions of colours) creating a much larger file size (double 24-bit), and requiring storage in formats that explicitly support this colour depth (TIF). Whilst images can be scanned and stored at with high colour depth at present affordable monitors and printers are not available to display or reproduce images with such high quality. |
This table is from the State Records NSW Digitisation Guideline and shows the impact of resolution and bit-depth on file size (in megabytes).
| Colour depth | Res (ppi) | Total bits | Uncompressed file size |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bit bi-tonal | 300 | 8 700 867 | 1.04mb |
| 1 bit bi-tonal | 600 | 34 803 468 | 4.15mb |
| 8 bit grey or colour | 300 | 69 606 936 | 8.30mb |
| 8 bit grey or colour | 600 | 278,427,744 | 34.00mb |
| 24 bit colour | 300 | 208 820 808 | 24.89mb |
| 24 bit colour | 600 | 835,283,232 | 101.96mb |
We won’t go too in depth on this as the use of colour management is not mandatory, but it does provide the opportunity to create images that have more accurate colour.
However, for the more experienced digitisation readers …
Colour management outlines the colour capabilities of hardware devices – cameras, scanners, monitors and printers – by creating a translation (profile) that controls how the colour is displayed (or printed) by those devices.
Colour profiles ensure the quality of reproduced colour across many output devices. The minimum requirement for most projects should be an input profile outlining the colour space of the device that was used to digitise the document (most devices will default to sRGB).
Printing is a common scenario where the need for colour profile is emphasized. Whilst printing may not be the main objective of your digitisation project, the prospective requirements should be taken into account.
Calibration will also help achieve accurate and reliable colour. Calibration refers to the process of stabilising the imaging equipment to provide a consistent colour representation.
For more information see:
http://getty.edu/research/publications/electronic_publications/introimages/image.html
Phew! Still with us? We’re going to power on through to file types and file compression.
Tip: Be wary of proprietary owned files types – eg: PSD files are Photoshop files. Without the Photoshop program the files are inaccessible.
This is currently the preferred archival format for storage of images. It is the most common uncompressed image file type and retains all of the image information. It also offers lossless compression options (see below under File Compression). Most software programs use this format and it is available for both Macintosh and Windows.
This format is highly compressed and removes “unnecessary” image information. Most software programs use this format and it is available for both Macintosh and Windows.
A compression standard enabling both lossless and lossy storage. The compression methods are different from the ones in standard JPEG and improve quality and compression ratios. However it requires more computational power (or to be more technical, grunt) to process.
| Format | Bit depth | Compression |
|---|---|---|
| TIFF (TIF) |
|
No Compression or Lossless (LWZ) |
| PNG |
|
Lossless (ZIP) |
| JPEG2000 (JP2) |
|
Lossless or Lossy |
| JPEG (JPG) |
|
Lossy |
| PSD |
|
No compression |
Compression shrinks the digital images for storage. There are two ways to compress:
1. Lossless eg: TIFF – keeps all data by encoding the image files. It can reduce the file size by 40-60% without scarifying (boo!) any pixel information.
The encoding stores adjacent pixels with the same colour value as a single value and the data records how many pixels have been compressed together. This way of compressing files is highly desirable when no resources for storing un-compressed files is available.
We currently store our master files as un-compressed TIFF.
2. Lossy eg: JPEG/JPG – this way of compression permanently removes “un-important data” (subtle colour/tonal information that is hard to distinguish with the human eye) aiming to strike a balance between acceptable loss of detail and bandwidth.
Lossy compression is not recommended for master images, as it scarifies (boo! x2) pixel information. It is, however, very useful for managing the bandwidth of derivative images – particularly those used for online access.
We use compressed JPEG/PNG images on our website.
While lossless compression is preferable you can see in the image below that lossy compression doesn’t always show a loss of detail. It depends on the amount of compression that is applied which in turn depends on the image content and resolution.
The more compression applied the more visible the result. With lossy compression you can reduce an image from 1/10 to 1/20 of its original size without perceived loss.
Tip: Lossy compression is irreversible. Each time a jpeg file is saved – even after minor edits – it will lose quality.
While storage costs decrease as technological capabilities increase, the size and number of individual digital files will have an impact on your resources. Determining an adequate storage capacity for the amount of data your digitisation program will potentially generate is an important part of your plan.
To estimate the size of storage required for the digital images, a small organisation may have a calculation like this:
[Average file size = 20MB]
x
[#Digitised files/day = 100]
x
[Workdays/year =260]
=
a storage requirement of 520GB/year (or 1.56Tb over 3 years).
A larger organisation could require a storage capacity of up to 10-15Tb per year (increasing each year). This calculation is from the State Records NSW Digitisation Guideline.
Security – can the files be tampered with/can an unauthorised user gain access?
Accessibility – are the files easy to retrieve by an authorised user? Is there a record of where items are stored? This could include sensible naming conventions for the digital files; organised folders/labels; keywords (metadata). Will they remain accessible long-term as storage systems change/or update?
An example of naming a convention for a series of files:
series number + job number + photo/file in sequence = 17420_a012_00004.jpg
At State Records our master files are stored on a dedicated server. Access is limited to authorised staff only, lessening the chance of lost or tampered data.
Image files for ‘use’ (web delivery, staff requests, copy orders etc) are stored on a separate server. A greater number of authorised staff have access to these files.
Media – will you store images on a hard-drive; CD/DVD; USB stick/memory card? There’s no perfect medium – each has a limited lifespan.
Back-ups – any of the above media could malfunction – have you made a back-up? Do you regularly update your back-up or check its functionality?
As we’ve discussed above, resolution, colour-depth, file type, compression and storage need to be considered in your plan.
Remember: these parameters often depend of the format of the original item.
Whilst there is currently no universal standard for digitisation specifications, a number of organisation have published recognised guidelines for capturing digital images – we have included here for your reference.
Every organisation will have differing requirements/capabilities depending on the nature of their collection and the digitisation resources available to them.
If you’re still reading give yourself an almighty pat on the back! In the next post we provide some tips on handling and scanning archives.
