NYB,
Thanks for reminding me - this slipped my mind in amongst my other work.
The brief outline I did is at
.
The problem is that digitisation - proper digitisation - is not something
that can really be done without employing staff to do it. First there's the
scanning, obviously - which is simple enough. IMO the Coolscan is the best
for this (for under £5k anyway), but it's difficult to get hold of, and we
don't really have the technical skills to maintain it. Tempting though -
but we'd need to prove that it was worth the cost.
WMDE did a full review into it and worked out that, with the number of
slides that need scanning, it's best (ie most cost-effective) to hire
something like a Hasselblad X5 for a day.
The other problem - and it's a big problem - is, as POTW says, the
post-processing and indexing. A good scanner will automatically
post-process for you (to a degree). And you'll need your own offline
database - Commons is not great for actually storing images because they
tend to be deleted if you're not careful, and you can't control the
categorisation (or indeed, much else - the community controls it)
A few examples from the one we have in our office are at
.
The slides are from a 1970s camera, so they're not amazing to begin with.
But it gives you an idea.
Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
On 19 February 2014 00:34, Newyorkbrad <newyorkbrad(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I'm surprised not to see any replies to this
particular thread. It seems
to me to be a "no-brainer" (to use a nonce-word that I hate) that imaging
equipment for local wiki organizations in a position to make good use of it
to upload free content for the projects should be a high priority for
funding at whatever level.
In the next funding cycle, maybe someone should propose a pilot program of
allocating $10,000 and making ten $1,000 micro-grants for this purpose,
with the application process to include discussion of what or whose free
content would be made available to the projects if the equipment were
provided.
Newyorkbrad
On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 3:04 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
A message I just sent in a wikimediauk-l thread
about photographic
negative scanners, which I thought might be of general interest to
Wikimedia organisations.
tl;dr: an archival-quality negative scanner has potential to be a
white elephant* (a donation that is actually a liability), but could
be a useful thing that an organisation could use to make very good
friends with GLAMs and individuals.
- d.
*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
Date: 15 February 2014 20:00
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] WMUK slide scanner
To: UK Wikimedia mailing list <wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
On 15 February 2014 19:52, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 15 February 2014 15:23, David Gerard
<dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15 February 2014 15:09, Andy Mabbett <andy(a)pigsonthewing.org.uk>
wrote:
> > Change of plan: Thank you, but I've
been offered the use of one of
> > these:
> >
http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/scanner/scoolscan_4000/
> > by a friend who lives locally.
> Oooooooooooooh you lucky bugger. That's
the level of archival-quality
> piece of kit we could do with for WMUK. Though it would have to live
> in the office.
A nikon product at the WMUK office? Is that
wise:
:-)
Seriously, though: if you want archival quality, the way to go is a
CoolScan. Not only would we be able to scan negatives ourselves
(though it'd be tied to the office, rather than being a loanable
item), we'd be able to make very good friends indeed with GLAMs that
have random piles of unscanned negatives.
It'd be nice if someone with a few hundred quid bought a CoolScan,
scanned their collection, then donated the kit to WMUK when done with
it.
The way it usually goes is: someone buys a CoolScan on eBay, scans
their negative collection, sells it to the next person. WMUK would be
a suitable end point for such a chain.
The main catch is for it to be *someone else's* problem to make sure a
decade-old piece of kit is in usable condition not to be a white
elephant - donating something that turns into a liability is helpy
rather than helpful. CoolScan IV/4000 use FireWire, V/5000 on use USB
... software and supported OS is an interesting question as well ...
III/3000 and earlier do archival-quality scanning, but often have
weird hardware requirements. I think the I and II needed their own ISA
card. This is the sort of white elephant *not* to inflict on a small
charity.
If I had ~£500 to spare I would happily be that person. I'm not though
:-)
I'll borrow the Ion (a rather less fragile piece of kit, so
borrowable), but if I had access to a CoolScan I'd happily do 'em
again.
- d.
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