Message-Id: <199812152024.NAB10384@dns.ccit.arizona.edu> Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 15:29:02 -0400 From: Tamara Swora <mailto:tswo@LOC.GOV> Subject: National Digital Library Program/ PDF of Manuscript Document To: mailto:IMAGELIB@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Just an update that the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program has made available a PDF version of the report below whose initial availability in an HTML version was announced in early November. We received numerous requests for a more easily printed version. The PDF file appears with the HTML athttp://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ftpfiles.html
or directly at the URL
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pictel/pictel.pdf
****************************************************************** Report released at the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program at the American Memory website.
Final Report of the Library of Congress Manuscript Document Digitization Demonstration Project (October 1998)
This demonstration project produced images of 10,000 document pages from the New Deal era Federal Theatre collection held by the Music Division at the Library of Congress. The project was sponsored by the Library's Preservation Directorate, overseen by the National Digital Library Program (NDLP), and carried out from 1994-97 by Picture Elements, Inc., of Berkeley, California, and Boulder, Colorado. The final report is available at the Library of Congress website at this URL: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pictel/index.html.
The project was guided by these questions: What type of image is best suited for the digitization of large manuscript collections, especially collections consisting mostly of twentieth century typescripts? What level of image quality strikes the best balance between production economics and the requirements set by future uses of the images? Will the same high quality image that might be appropriate for preservation reformatting also provide efficient online access for researchers?
A steering committee of Library staff members guided the project. Recognizing the variations in the types and condition of the paper and in the density of the imprints and markings on the sheets, the committee selected grayscale and color images for the highest-quality images. The committee found that the importance of these manuscripts lies in their information value and agreed to accept slight aesthetic degradation of the images so long as legibility was not impaired. Thus a slight degree of "lossy" JPEG compression was applied to the highest-quality images.
The committee selected high-contrast bitonal images for access, influenced by the model of microfilming and by considerations of ease of printing. After the consultants completed the project, however, the Library produced an additional set of grayscale and color access images in the GIF format. This practice, which the NDLP has continued, reflects the need to present document images in World Wide Web browser software as well as a desire to retain the tonality of the originals.