All, Sounds very interesting to me. What do you think? Thanks,
Steve Christopher J. Mackie wrote: > Hi all; I'm writing today on behalf of Mellon's IT funding program (not > our Museums and Art Conservation Program, which is a different entity). > We're looking at an opportunity to fund a different kind of digitization > project, and I wonder if I could ask for your thoughts about its likely > usefulness in the museum/cultural heritage communities? > > What we've got in mind is a digitization rig for small or medium-sized > 2D digitization projects. The project would use off-the-shelf hardware > and open source software, packaged carefully to be extremely easy to set > up and use, even with no prior training. It would be able to handle > almost any kind of 2D material up to a certain size (books, flat pages, > images) non-destructively, would OCR the results, and would then deliver > the documents as special, searchable PDFs that could reformat for any > display devices (i.e., the text would 'flow' so that you could, e.g., > read on your iPhone without having to scroll side-to-side or flip > pages). Let me emphasize that it would be built to be operated by people > with no digitization training whatsoever: staff, volunteers, students, > etc. > > The system would be easy to set up and self-calibrating; it would use > pairs of consumer-grade cameras ($250-500) from any of several > manufacturers. The software would run on any standard PC or laptop > (Mac/Win/Lin), support one-button operation, provide automatic page > de-warping, include automatic OCR, allow computer-assisted addition of > metadata, and otherwise be set up to produce professional quality output > even when used by complete amateurs. We anticipate the final cost of all > hardware and software (including the cameras and PC or laptop to run > everything), to be sub-$2,000. > > As you can infer from the above, this is not a system for digitizing > fine art at very high resolution, but it is a curation-quality > digitization system for text, whether diaries or handbills in a > historical society or books in a museum library. Our goal is to bring > digitization to the "Long Tail" of smaller collections out there in the > world that are of potential cultural significance but where the likely > audience is not large enough to attract the big, for-profit > digitizers--or where the value or fragility is such that the works could > not leave the institution to be scanned. Think of it as "Google Books > for the Rest of Us...." :-) > > I'd really appreciate the thoughts of those of you who know museums and > cultural heritage organizations well, on three separable questions: > > 1. Does anyone know of any other project, currently available or in > development, that might deliver the same functionality and > price-performance? > > 2. If we build this, will institutions come? Are there many institutions > out there with collections (including museum libraries) that their > leaders would like to digitize, and which have labor (in some form) > available to do the work, but for which the capital costs, expertise > requirements, or other challenges of the current technology are the > limiting factor? > > 3. If institutions do take advantage of this service, will they make the > resulting content freely available? (I'm not looking to rehash barriers > like copyright, but rather to solicit information/thoughts that bear on > the *willingness* of museums and cultural heritage organizations to > publish such content freely.) > > Two logistical matters. First, may I ask that replies go to the list > unless you really need confidentiality? I'd like to get as many > different views as possible, including responses-to-responses. Second, > please note that I'm soliciting feedback on these questions, not > proposals or offers to be a test site. If we do move forward, I think we > may indeed want to invite institutions to become test sites, but if so > I'll be back in touch via the MCN list: I'm not prepared to start a > wait-list today. > > (I'm also asking these questions of our friends in the library and arts > communities, so apologies in advance for any redundancy in your inboxes > :-) > > Thanks! --Chris > > Christopher J. Mackie > Associate Program Officer > Research in Information Technology > The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation > -- > 282 Alexander Rd. > Princeton, NJ 08540 > -- > 140 E. 62nd St. > New York, NY 10065 > -- > +1 609.924.9424 (office: GMT - 5:00) > +1 609.933.1877 (mobile) > +1 646.274.6351 (fax) > cjmackie06 @ AIM > cjmackie5 @ Yahoo > -- > http://rit.mellon.org; http://www.mellon.org > > > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer > Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > > >
