The cost of digitizing Mint documents - or the value of new information....?
RogerB
Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
It might be interesting to members to know a little about the costs associated with digitizing US Mint documents. This will also help explain why so little of the material is available on-line or on DVD.
Over the past couple of weeks I ran a test digitization experiment on one archive box out of 400+. The box contained about 650 pages of many different sizes; all pages had been folded in thirds (called a 'trifold') as part of the original filing system. Large pages were folded multiple times. Every page had to be pulled from the box, unfolded and scanned or photographed.
Part of the material was digitized using a 12x17-inch flatbed scanner. The rest was photographed using a Nikon digital camera.
Results -
Scanning took longer than photography and it was easier to flatten the pages. But large documents could not be scanned.
Photography was faster than scanning, but it was more difficult to flatten pages. Large and small documents could be digitized, but it took extra time to adjust camera distance and lighting.
In both methods sheet folds were readily evident and occasionally obscured handwriting.
Most images required post-digitization processing to enhance faint text, crop out extraneous background and correct crooked pages.
Total time: A little short of 12 hours to digitize this one box. Post-processing required another 5 hours.
While it is possible to semi-automate book/volume scanning, handling this type of material - especially when it is brittle from oxidation and age - is a manual process. Imagine the cost of paying people to do this at typical business rates.
[This is just my recent experience. Those who do this kind of thing on a daily basis would likely be much more efficient.]
Comments
Wow, that really puts it in perspective. Obviously applicable to all old records, government or otherwise, from before the digital age... my wife runs into some similar problems while researching genealogy, lamenting why many states have no online record searching.
Where do your digitized mint records go once you've converted them? Are they available on a public website somewhere, or just maintained privately?
Thank you for your time and effort doing this.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Many old documents were stored flat, and they can be digitized much faster than folded ones. Most US Mint documents, however, were folded with a 'brief' on one of the folds so that clerks could quickly see the letter's content.
For flat originals of uniform dimensions, a conveyor belt system can be used much as was done in making microfilm. But this will not work for folded and creased pages. Some of the early US Mint materials, especially those in Entry-1 at Philadelphia NARA could be digitized using a conveyor & camera system.
RE: "Where do your digitized mint records go once you've converted them? Are they available on a public website somewhere, or just maintained privately?"
I'm sending most to the Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP) in PDF format. They add them to their database and they are publicly available for free. The test box mentioned is there - RG104 Entry-229, Box 17 of 17; it is entirely Carson Mint material.
Very cool. Thanks for all of the effort you put into preserving that history for future generations of collectors!
Scanning will generally produce a better result for a 2D image, so it's generally worth the extra time. I have scanned large documents (maps) by scanning different areas then stitching them together in Photoshop, but it's a pain and probably not worth the time...
Did you put the document under glass? (I don't know your setup.) And ideally, you could just have 3 or 4 focal positions, then sort your source material to size. (If possible.) You would only have to adjust your focus and lighting a couple of times, then crop and resize in post for the final image if necessary. Just about any camera today will have the resolution to do this.
I feel your pain.
Back in 2008 (I think) I got serious about archiving all my (and much of my dad's) analog photography. Some of the dyes in the consumer grade negatives I had were fading, and even my Dad's Kodachrome slides were close to their end of life.
(For the geeks, I was scanning (Epson V750 Pro) 35mm slides/transparencies at 4800dpi with ICE at its highest setting, creating (around) 85MB tiffs.)
Took 9 minutes per image. I ended up scanning 7,000 slides and negatives. That's over 1,000 hours just scanning the material. I could mount a dozen slides or 4 negative strips of 6 frames, then batch scan all of them, so that was a time saver, but that didn't include mounting and post-processing all 7K images. (One side effect, I found I could save a lot of out-of-focus/out-of-exposure images in photoshop that you couldn't save using analog techniques.)
Anyway, the entire project took about 3 years, and I worked on it every chance I could. If I did it again today, the physical scanning time would have been faster with today's CPUs, but it's still the post-process that takes the longest time...
So yeah, I know what you're going through, and you have my sympathies. On the other hand, when you're done, you'll be really good at digitizing docs!
Ouch. Talk about leg work. If only they could have envisioned the future digital age 100+years ago.
Btw, what's a DVD?
I will echo what others have said here-thanks so much for doing this!
BackroadJunkie --
Thanks for the comments and sharing your experiences with slides and photos. New equipment and software allow automatic scanning of mounted 35mm slides. One model has a sable brush and air blaster for cleaning off dust prior to the scan.
NARA has specific rules about handling documents and some of these make digitization more difficult. For example, they permit use of a clear flattening plate only for single pages. (The plate can be used only for the 2nd page of a two-page letter.) Further, you must use their own in-house plastic plates which are cheaply made, dirty and filled with scratches. In the College Park facility overhead lighting is inadvertently arranged so that it reflects off the clear plate regardless of the angle used. (Polarization does not work because the plates are plastic, not glass.) You cannot bring your own flattening plate. Other rules create additional digitization problems.
The goal is to make high quality scans of everything in the box - quickly. Stitching images takes far too much time to be practical. (I do this routinely with documents for publication.)
PS: I used autofocus on everything.
Interested readers can check out images at the NNP site - all free to use per the foresight of the late Eric P. Newman.
Wow... monumental task....and as I understand it, there are 'mountains' of data in storage facilities (not just numismatic records of course) in various places around the country. Thanks for your efforts Roger... Cheers, RickO
Yes, the encyclopedia of US Coins on the NNP site I like a lot
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PS: A rough estimate of dollar cost would be $156,000 for this one series, assuming $20/hour labor and 15% overhead. That kind of money is not in museum, library or NARA budgets.
I've done some research and have found that some places want $100 for just one image.
Crazy!