Download below: Get Digitisation Ready eBook (Part 1 & Part 2)
We live and breathe digitisation here at TownsWeb Archiving and it’s the protection of heritage archives that is fundamental to everything that we do.
Of course, being a specialist provider, it couldn’t be easier for us to meet the high quality expectations that digitisation demands. We have the benefit of over twenty years experience, a solid team with combined specialist knowledge, tried and tested workflows, and the state-of-the-art equipment required for virtually every conceivable material.
We are clearly at an advantage when it comes to getting it right, but this is not the case for everyone. A number of organisations choose to digitise in-house, for a variety of reasons, and we appreciate that this is a huge undertaking, and can often be somewhat of a daunting task. Before a single thing even gets close to being captured there are a multitude of factors to be considered, and things that you need to get in place, hence we recently released an eBook: Get Digitisation Ready (Part 1), which focuses on digitisation planning, funding, what to expect if digitising inhouse as opposed to outsourcing, and calculating the likely costs of your project.
Our values and mission for the protection of heritage archives, and the opportunities for greater discoverability through online access, means we are concerned for all collections, not just the ones we have the privilege of digitising here in our studios. History, heritage, culture and identity are central to us all and any loss of this, whether through inferior quality outputs or poorly handled items, is a loss to the heritage community as a whole. Consequently, the next installment of our eBook: Get Digitisation Ready (Part 2) focuses on what guidelines you should follow for the successful and safe capture of your items, using a flatbed scanner vs. a DSLR and lightbox setup, and how to build an outreach strategy.
Our hope is that this eBook will serve to make the digitisation process more accessible, and that the digitisation of heritage archives will become more equitable as a result, with more and more archives being protected in this way. Precious material will be safeguarded and future generations will benefit from the work that the industry is doing right now.
Happy reading and best of luck with your next project, whether you chose to digitise in-house or outsource to specialist providers, such as ourselves.