Meet Millie Coleman, Digitisation Technician

We are excited to introduce our guest blogger, Millie Coleman. Millie works in our digitisation studio here at TownsWeb and brings a fresh perspective from behind the scenes.

Millie will be sharing occasional blogs that offer an insider’s view into our studio processes, the team she works alongside, some of the interesting projects we're lucky to be working on, and the rewarding moments that come with supporting our clients’ preservation goals.

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INSIDE THE TOWNSWEB DIGITISATION STUDIO

Hi! I’m Millie, I’ve been a Digitisation Technician at TownsWeb Archiving for three months. Alongside my passion for digitisation, I’m also interested in travel and sport. Before joining TownsWeb, I spent a year living in Sydney on a working holiday, where I worked as a waitress and travelled around Australia. Outside of work, I enjoy going to the gym and taking part in weightlifting, boxing classes, and yoga. I’m also a dog owner and love walking him and exploring new places!

As a Digitisation Technician at TownsWeb Archiving, I get to work with an incredible variety of materials every day. These range from loose pages and bound volumes to metal-fastened books, negatives, slides and glass plate negatives.

Our job is to take old, fragile items and turn them into high-quality digital files that will last a lifetime. In the three months I’ve been here, I’ve worked on eight different projects, and I bring another three years of digitisation experience with me. Over the years, I’ve handled all sorts of materials, from simple loose sheets to heavily damaged glass plates. Some of the projects I’ve worked on include a very popular tea company as well as a major consumer-goods company known for its nutrition, hygiene, and personal care products. The materials we received for these projects dated back to the 20th century, particularly the mid-1900s.

I enjoy working at TownsWeb because I’m constantly exposed to a wide variety of interesting material, and there’s always something new to learn. I also appreciate that the company offers opportunities to grow and build experience. Plus, the team is genuinely sociable, and the fun activities we do together now and then make the workplace even more enjoyable.

We rely on high-quality equipment to get the best results. For document scanning we use Vanguard scanners, larger format scanners, specialist lighting and high-resolution Canon cameras mounted on light stands. We also use professional software such as Capture One and Photoshop to make sure every image is as clear and accurate as possible.

A large format book scanner and a Vanguard book scanner with document lighting and cameras placed above the scanners. The cameras are tethered to the PC using Capture One.

Above: Sophie, one of our digitisation technicians, scanning a book using the Vanguard book scanner.

Film negatives and slides are digitised using our Epson scanner, connected to a PC for viewing and editing the scans. For glass negatives, we have an alternative method: we use the same setup as our document scanning station, but switch off the document lighting and place a cool, non-heat lightbox beneath the negative. We then adjust the camera settings and white balance to produce a positive digital image.

These slides are placed inside the Epson scanner, which is connected to the PC and the preview image is then displayed.

Above: A glass plate negative being scanned by our Epson scanner.

All the lighting we use is non-heat producing to ensure no damage is caused to fragile materials.

Our digitisation and storage rooms have air conditioning installed with a temperature of 18 degrees Celsius, and we also have a humidifier in the storage room. Each project is stored on clearly labelled shelves, so everything stays organised and nothing ever goes missing.

This is our storage room where we keep all of our material, each project is labelled on shelves.

If you need any of your archival material digitised, please reach out to our friendly team so we can discuss your requirements.