Scanning

     An important part of my project is scanning. I need to scan the images and documents from my collection into the computer for a couple different reason. First, I took the photos on display off the walls and scanned them in order to print a copy to hang back up, and to keep the original safe in folders and archival boxes. After that was complete, and I had my entire collection all in one place, I began to scan the rest of my collection. This is a process that I'm still working on.
     Unfortunately, the scanner in the Collections Room at the Public History Center has been giving us a lot of problems. It's really temperamental, and for a few weeks I had to go back and forth between the library and the collections room to scan photos. Fortunately, UCF's tech support guy has been helping us with the scanner, and for the past two weeks it has been cooperating.
     Now, I can get my work done. The reason why I am scanning my entire collection into the computer is so the PHC has the archival items stored digitally as well as physically. Also, I will be posting each item's scan on Riches M.I. as I make contributions to the site. The digital copyrights of all the items that I scan belong to the Public History Center.
     How to Scan: for each item that I scan, I set it to TIFF with 800dpi. I click Preview, and adjust the selection to only scan the document (or else it would scan the blank spaces as well, and it would take more time for me to crop each item in Photoshop). I then click scan, and make sure that the item is going into the appropriate folder with the appropriate name. Then I wait for the scanning to be complete, which takes approximately 2-3 minutes. During this time, I multitask by preparing the next item to be scanned, submitting items to Riches, or working on my blog.
     This size image takes up a lot of room, so to be able to post it on Riches, I transfer the items by folder into JPEGs, through Photoshop. This format is much more space and internet friendly.
     Coming into this internship, I already knew a lot about scanning and JPEGs from my high school days. During my sophomore, junior, and senior years I took Photography as a class. This also equipped me with Photoshop knowledge, which has come in handy many times during my internship.
     The Salmagundis are going to take a long time to scan into the computer, because of their size. I have to scan each individual page. I have already completed scanning the 1919 Salmagundi, with the help of Professor Sample here at the PHC. She was asked by the UCF tech support guy to try to scan things into the computer, so he could diagnose the problem with the scanner. Of course, since someone was there to fix it, the scanner was working just fine, and she ended up scanning around half of the 1919 Salmagundi for me. Thanks Professor Sample! With that one done, I have 14 more to scan. Each one will take approximately a full day to scan. With the Spring semester already half over, I hope I have time to finish them. Right now, I'm getting the other parts of my project scanned, and if time permits I will scan the Salmagundis.
Until next time, Samantha