Libraries
Case Study One
Selling Printed Photographs to the Public
THE ORGANISATION
The organisation was formed in 2003. The organisation is a charitable trust working on behalf of the local Council to manage and support Leisure and Cultural facilities, initiatives and events for over 300,000 residents across the Borough.
PROJECT BACKGROUND AND AIMS
The organisation put a tender forward to potential suppliers entitled 'The Digitisation of the Trust’s Photographic Collection and the Setting Up and Management of a Public Website'.
They were looking for a supplier that could:
- Scan approximately 5,000 photographs in glass plate,
original print and 35mm film strip formats.
- Provide the images to a high resolution (minimum 10"x8" print size at 300dpi) in master and surrogate formats.
- Watermark the surrogate copies of each image.
- Use the organisations exported meta-data from their Adlib system and attach the records to the scanned images.
- Setup, design and develop a public website to host the
digitised collection online. To include a search engine and
payment gateway for buying images.
- Provide a Collections Management System to allow the
Trust access and maintain the online content and add further
information/images in small quantities.
- Maintain and host the images online and provide a service
to customers buying prints of the collection.
AWARD OF CONTRACT
TownsWeb Archiving fought off tough competition to win the tender. Suppliers were judged on various weighted criteria which included Experience, Quality Assurance, Technical Suitability, Flair, Communication Skills and Cost/Value for Money.
DIGITISATION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS
The 'top 5,000' photographs were identified by the staff and then labelled and packaged ready for collection. The photographs were personally collected from the Archives Department by TownsWeb Archiving's own staff. A personal collection was deemed necessary due to the fragile nature of the glass plates.
The images were scanned to a high resolution and the files named according to the identfier that staff had written on to the envelopes of each photograph. Negative images were converted to positive. Each image was then individually checked, contrast adjusted where necessary and then output in both master TIFF and surrogate JPEG formats.
Images and originals were provided at various intervals in order for QA checks to be performed.
All images were personally delivered back to staff on an external USB hard drive within 2 months of collection.
COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
TownsWeb Archiving have their own Collections Management System called 'ArcView'
(www.arc-view.com). This system allows users to import new photographic (or other) images in to an online repositary, associate meta-data to each image and then associate other features to each image such as 'watermark features', whether or not to display the image to the public and what the cost will be for a print of the image.
Following a small amount of bespoke development work and the import of the scanned images and meta-data (exported from ADLIB), staff were provided with access and training.
PUBLIC ACCESS TO THE PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION
The development team at TownsWeb Archiving worked with staff to design and develop a website where members of the public could search through the photographic archive using various keywords. Any photographs that matched the search criteria would be displayed in thumbnail format with an option to see an enlarged view of the image.
Each image displayed would have a short description and also an 'add to cart' option providing the ability to purchase prints at 10"x8" or 6"x4". The design of the website followed the colour scheme and layout principles of the Trusts current website and it was implemented following W3C compliance standards.
PROVIDING PRINTS TO THE CUSTOMER
When an order for a photographic print is made via the website it is handled and processed by TownsWeb Archiving staff. The order is taken, the photograph printed, packaged and then posted to the customer. Any customer order enquiries are handled by TownsWeb Archiving's staff.
PROVIDING ACCESS TO THE IMAGES & INCOME GENERATION
For each and every order of a photographic print an amount (excluding processing/print/post costs) is passed over to the organisation. They have stated that this will help to fund further content to be digitised and offered online.
The Organisation said…
“We have a large collection of historic photographs comprising around 30,000 images in a variety of formats including original prints, glass plates, lantern slides and 35mm negatives. Thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund, we were able to get 5,000 images digitised and make them accessible through a website. After a tendering process, we chose TownsWeb Archiving Ltd to digitise the images, provide us with a collections management system, develop a public website where prints could be ordered and handle the orders of prints and despatch them to the customer. TownsWeb Archiving Ltd were unique in their ability to offer specialist scanning, in-house software development and customer fulfilment services. Through this joint venture with TownsWeb Archiving we are hoping that the public will have better access to their heritage and any revenue generated will help us fund the digitisation of further photographs. We would certainly recommend TownsWeb Archiving to others”
TownsWeb Archiving Ltd can be contacted on
01536 713834 or on the web at
www.townswebarchiving.com or via email at
enquiries@townswebarchiving.com.
