Sunday, July 1, 2007

Scanning for Digitization Projects

Title: Scanning for Digitization Projects
Title of Journal: Computers in Libraries; Vol. 27 Issue 3, p46-48
Author: Wentzel, Larry
Date: July 1, 2007

This article talks about the act of digitization. Digitization is the act of creating digital images with optimal quality for library digitization. What is library digitization. For example,when a patron searches for a particular title and with the title and summary is the picture of the book jacket. The picture of the book jacket has been digitized. Libraries around the world are digitizing items in their collection because it makes files easier to manipulatenad transfer.
The remainder of the article talks about the particular equipment that is used to digitize items. The first item that is necessary is a flatbed scanner. The scanner does the actual digitization. The most imporatnt thing to remeber is that in order to get a successful product one must first familiarize themself with the scanner. The second item is a digital camera. A digital camera works much like the scanner. The only difference is that you may view the product before ever downloading the image into the computer. The next thing that an individula must work with is the resolutiopn, color space and file formats of the digitized image. In order to be successful The Digital Librray Foundation recommends that anyone wanting to digitize needs to take a closer look at their website. On their website they break down the specifications in parts.
I had no idea that there was so many things involved when scanning an object. I always thought that you laid the image on the scanner. The most you would have to do is use the edit feature. I had no idea that you could change the size, color quality and change the dots per inch. This articel was an eye opener. I would like to learn more about the actual process of digitizing a libraries collection.

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