Notes on Digitizing and Sourcing Images and Text (and Video)

Well, if you are going to do a web-based project, then you are going to end up working with digital materials. It is great if you can find materials that are already in digital form, but often you can't, and then you need to find materials (text, photos, audio, video) that you can digitize yourself.

You will need these two indispensable physical tools:

• scanner. There are different sizes, types, and brands, but you definitely need one.
• digital camera (or some way to take digital photos). A lot of people use a digital camera to take a picture of a text document instead of trying to lug a scanner around. Nowadays, your smartphone might have a quite capable digital camera. Indeed, the smartphone has become indispensable for taking photos of records in archives--no one photocopies anymore!

You will need a variety of software tools to work with digital materials. This will depend, of course, on whether you are using a PC or a Mac, or a tablet, or an iPad, and it will also depend on how much money you want to spend on software. What is interesting is the fact that software has become more and more important over time:

• software to digitize video and work with it (and you need a way to get non-digitized video material into and captured by your computer)
• the software that works with your scanner, and you need software that recognizes scanned text (OCR), such as Adobe Acrobat
• software that works with images (Adobe Photoshop)
• something to digitize audio and work with it (and you need a way to get non-digitized audio material captured by your computer)

So, you will need some integrated hardware/software setup on your computer for your to do your work. It can be simple (just the default set up of an iPad), or it can get pretty complicated. I've got my old setup (see photo) divided between my MacBook Pro and my PC, running Windows XP. Some things I only do on my Mac, and some things I only do on my PC. Your setup is something that can take years for you to finally get everything established in a way that you are comfortable. (I've got to admit since I wrote that, I've changed my setup. I still use my XP computer for capturing audio from the web, since I have some specific software installed. I also use my XP computer with my Minolta slide scanner. I have a Toshiba laptop now that does all of my text work and that I also use to work with my online, Omeka databases. My MacBook Pro is for all of my design work, since it has the Adobe Creative suite.

Patrick M., a 2017 student, has an excellent post, The Grateful Dead and Digital Audio/Video, in which he discusses digitization of the hundreds of Grateful Dead concert bootleg recordings from the last forty or so years. This is highly recommended reading.

If you can figure out how to use Neatline, a Scholar's lab tool and Omeka plugin, please let me know. That would be great. (I can't seem to get a grasp of it myself.)

Training?

So where do you get training and the know-how to figure out how to digitize items and work with different software packages? And where can you do it for free? That's key. You can always find places where you can pay for training.

Well, you can ask a question on Google or YouTube? You'd be surprised how quickly you will find an answer. I have a lot of questions when I am working on something, and by using the right phrase, I can find an answer somewhere on the web.

You can also try some websites for training, such as Lynda.com (I have not looked closely at these.), or NobleDesktop (which sometimes has free, online seminars; and I have done one of them, which was very good), or khanacademy.org (short, 12 minute lectures; some are very good). There is also a lot of tutorials by Hoonuit, and all students at NVCC have free access. Finally, you can find all kinds of tutorials on YouTube; you just have to pick the right search term.

Image Editing Software

• Adobe: Photoshop and Lightroom.
• Corel PaintShop Pro
• Serif PhotoPlus
• ACDSee Photo Editor
• ScanTailor (a processing tool for scanned pages)
• There also several decent editing applications available for free on the web.

Video and Audio Editing Software

• top of the line Adobe Premier
• Apple's iMovie
• For audio, consider: Cubase Elements, Magix Music Maker, MixCraft or Apple's Logic Pro or GarageBand.

Resources for More Information

• Smithsonian, Archives of America Art, Digitizing Entire Collections: Chapter 1, Background (Very useful introduction to the process)
• Zubin Mowlavi, 5 Mistakes You're Making When Producing Digital Content
• If you are interested in scanning an entire book, then first check out DIY Book Scanner. There are also videos on YouTube showing you how to do this. How about a Bargain-Price Book Scanner From A Cardboard Box?
• University of Lincoln, UK: Making Digital History
• Digital Humanities Quarterly: Webs of Significance
• What about going back in time with the Internet Wayback Machine, which is part of the larger Internet Archive Projects site.
• Google Arts and Culture has helped museums to digitize their collections. See Museum Views.

Where do you find digital materials

• Google Earth and Historical Aerials are great sources.
• Ebay
• I have more listed throughout the course.

Have Fun with your project!

Need I say more.