Introduction

What are digital images?

As more and more people use computers, many of the terms and words associated with them are making their way into everyday language. One of these is "digital", which is used to describe everything from digital television through to watches. The overuse of the term has undoubtedly lead to some confusion. However, for the purposes of this course we will use the term to refer to the process of creating a digital image (i.e., one existing inside a computer) from a physical object (a document, photograph or three dimensional artefact). To create a digital image we first capture an image of the original object using a camera or scanner. This image is then stored on a computer and from here it can be easily displayed on a monitor or printed. When this digital image appears on a monitor it is made up of thousands, sometimes millions of pixels (picture elements).

Pixels are similar to dots on a newspaper photograph or grains on a photographic print, which are arranged according to a predefined ratio of columns and rows. Each pixel represents a portion of the image in a particular colour, or shade of grey.

Why digitise?

One of the main virtues of digital imaging is its ability to make collections more accessible. In the past if you wanted to view an object in a museum you either had to arrange to view the real thing with a curator, or view a photograph of the object. Nowadays this process is much simpler if the collection has been digitised and recorded onto a CD ROM, placed on a web page or in a database. Collections that were once too remote to be viewed are now accessible; objects that were once too fragile to be handled or exhibited can now be seen by broad audiences.

Digital technology helps achieve your institution's goals, whether it be highlighting particular aspects of local history or reaching a national or international audience. Digitisation can also aid collections management by increasing all staff members' awareness of the content of your collections, especially if images are linked to your collections management system and networked throughout your museum. Digitised images are used in a wide range of outreach activities, including Web sites, promotional material, new products for the museum gift shop, and so on. Digitisation enhances preservation and conservation strategies, since once digitisation has occurred, the handling of fragile originals can be minimised. Digital images also play a role in outreach and public access, e.g., the production of exhibitions and the dissemination of information through virtual exhibitions, in galleries and through publications.

The benefits of digitisation

Digitisation projects are not cheap, but they should be viewed as a long-term investment for your institution and can yield substantial benefits.

Research

Research by curators, students, teachers, scholars, lecturers, researchers and specialists will be made easier and more effective, as disparate images can be studied in new contexts,
Widespread dissemination of images of local or unique collections will encourage scholarly use of resources,
Exploration of other collection materials related to those on exhibit will increase, and information about the museum and its significant collections will be enhanced,
International museum professionals and researchers may find digital images useful in investigating links, similarities and contrasts with works at other institutions.

Preservation

The handling of originals will be minimised,
An immediate replacement strategy can be offered for items that are on the verge of complete deterioration, such as film and sound archives,
Conservation of material is emphasised and enhanced,
The capture of high-quality images will improve the legibility of faded or stained documents.

Collections management

The information in collections management systems will be enhanced, since the necessary cataloguing information and resulting image bank of the collection will provide valuable collections management information,
Awareness within the institution itself of the value of its collection will be increased as choosing what to digitise requires prioritising, which in turn requires an assessment of the relative value of items in the collection,
The security of the objects in the collection will be enhanced,
Collections access and service to the public may be augmented,
Assistance in retrospective cataloguing, researching the collection, collection development needs and researching new acquisitions can be facilitated,
Curatorial functions will become more efficient,
Managing object movements will be made easier.

Public Access and Promotion

Retrieval of appropriate images for public relations and promotional uses will be improved,
Multimedia technologies can become part of public and education programs,
Exhibition support materials and programs, publications, etc. will be produced more easily,
The high profile activities outlined above can attract sponsorship,
Increased opportunity for sales of images (intellectual property).

Examples of digital projects

For all these reasons many regional, rural and remote museums from around the world have digitised part, or all of their collection. Now with the advent of the World Wide Web many of them have placed digital images on line. The following is a selection of museums who in the last two years have successfully implemented a digitisation project.

Lismore Regional Art Gallery - http://www.liscity.nsw.gov.au/content/art/start.asp

The Lismore Regional Art Gallery has been operating since 1953 and last year placed over 200 images from its collection up on its website. These digitised images have been widely used by local schools and Art Historians and also provide prospective visitors with a taste of what they will find.

Ballarat Tramway Museum - http://www.btm.org.au/

The Ballarat Tramway Museum houses one of Australia’s most significant collections of Trams. Over many years the volunteers that run the museum have been collecting and taking images of Melbourne’s trams and architecture. Last year the museum placed over 100 images on its website to encourage tram enthusiast and the local community, to help them gather additional information.

New Norcia Museum and Art Gallery - http://amol.org.au/newnorcia/index.html

The New Norcia Museum and Art Gallery is situated in Australia’s only monastic town. Their collection is unique and contains paintings by Spanish and Italian masters and a fascinating array of artefacts which tell the story of the New Norcia Monastery. In 1999 the museum began working with AMOL and the Western Australian Museum, to digitise its collection for a promotional website, which now helps attract visitors to this remote museum.

Canberra Bicycle Museum and Resource Centre - http://canberrabicyclemuseum.com.au

In 1999 the Canberra Bicycle Museum and Resource Centre started to produce digital images of its 705 bicycles. These images were used to develop a website as well as a publicly accessible collection research database.

University of Alberta Clothing and Textiles Collection - http://www.museums.ualberta.ca/dig/humanhist/art/cltx/

The University of Alberta Clothing and Textiles Collection contains over 16,000 textiles, garments, and related artefacts. Over the past three years, approximately 2,000 objects have been digitally imaged. Students and volunteers, using a mid-level digital camera, have done the majority of this work.

University of Alberta Print Study Centre (part of the University of Alberta Art and Artifact Collection) - http://www.museums.ualberta.ca/p_s/psc.html

The Print Study Centre, which holds approximately 1,400 works of art, is an interactive facility for teaching, research, and community programming. The Collection consists largely of prints and drawings from the 16th to the 20th centuries, by both Canadian and international artists. Almost all of the works in the Centre have been digitally imaged. The works have been photographed with slide film and then scanned into digital format. It is anticipated that the Centre's database will be searchable via the Internet by the summer of 2001.

University of Alberta Meteorite Collection - http://129.128.116.48/meteorites

The University of Alberta Meteorite Collection is one of the largest collections of meteorites in Canada. The Collection contains over 1,000 specimens of meteorites, tektites and impact rocks. Almost all of the Collection has been digitally imaged. The digital images were produced with a variety of techniques. Many were photographed with conventional film and then scanned, while others were captured with a mid-level digital camera.

University Health Network Artifact Collection Digital Photography Project - http://www.uhn.on.ca/education/education_info/artifact.html

The purpose of this project was to create a photographic archive of all the artefacts, paintings and print archives held by the University Health Network. The primary goal of the project was to create images for their database and other world wide web purposes. Two archives of images are being created, a database copy (file sizes of 30-50k), and an archive for long-term storage which holds mid quality images (up to 500k).

Wolverhampton Art Gallery, England - http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/web_page/threecorners.html

Wolverhampton Art Gallery has one of the most interesting Pop Art and Contemporary Art collections in the UK. Earlier this year they joined together with two other UK museums - the Wallace Collection and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts - to digitise some of the most important artworks from the collections.

The Textile Museum of Canada - http://www.museumfortextiles.on.ca/

The Textile Museum of Canada holds a collection of historic and ethnographic textiles from around the world. Currently the Museum is adding over 2000 images of its textiles to the collection research database. In future, the research database will be accessible through a public access terminal in the galleries and through the website, which will allow the public to browse the richness of its collection.

Date published: 1 August 2001