In response to your question #2, "if we build it, will they come?", the
answer is basically "no," in my experience developing open-source tools for
museum use. Even institutions that really ought to be using what you built
may need a lot of help in understanding that. And there will be others that
could use it, and would, if it weren't for that one little thing they wish
were different ...
Your question is smart: you will have to do a lot of work to get places to
know about it and use it, and to the extent that you can build it so that
different institutions can attach to it in different ways ("I love it but I
want the data to go straight into [insert name of application/storage device
here]") and build their own layers on top of it, it will be more usable by
more places. Of course, that approach can appear to complicate the software
to the places that want the out-of-the-box solution, so perhaps you should
do both--i.e., build the turnkey solution, but build it in a series of
layers, some of which are optional.
I think it's a great idea and if you succeed at it the community will
seriously owe you one.
Matt
On 8/5/08 6:06 PM, "Christopher J. Mackie" <CJM at mellon.org> 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
