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For the last two years we have been working on an exciting project to digitise the University of Edinburgh’s Art Collection. This has been a joint effort between both the Conservation and Collections Management and CHDS teams to create new visual records of the University of Edinburgh’s impressive Art Collection.
Continue reading “The Art of Documentation: Capturing the Art Collection”
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“The University of Edinburgh Bulletin (EUA IN1/PUB/4) is the institution’s internal magazine, covering news from around the University. It was established in 1964, succeeding the University of Edinburgh Gazette which had been running since 1952. Since 2009, it has been available in digital form and is now a wholly digital publication.” Grant Buttars, University Records Archivist
Continue reading “Digitising the Bulletin”
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Reflectance Transformation Imaging, or RTI as it is more commonly known, is described as ‘a computational photographic method that captures a subject’s surface shape and color and enables the interactive re-lighting of the subject from any direction. RTI also permits the mathematical enhancement of the subject’s surface shape and color attributes. The enhancement functions of RTI reveal surface information that is not disclosed under direct empirical examination of the physical object’ by Cultural Heritage Imaging https://culturalheritageimaging.org/Technologies/RTI/
I think of it as raking light on steroids- essentially you have a camera at the top which fires in sequence with individual lights located in a circle around the item, and then the registered images can be engaged with interactively through the freely available RTI Viewer https://culturalheritageimaging.org/What_We_Offer/Downloads/View/index.html
Continue reading “Reflectance (Transformation Imaging) Reflections”
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If you have been following the CHDS blog for the past few years you will have seen some of our content relating to the digitisation of the Charles Lyell Collection held by the University of Edinburgh (links to some of our past blogs can be found here and here). This collection is made up of material belonging to the Geologist, Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) and contains geological specimens, around 300 notebooks, correspondence, and other papers relating to his work. Continue reading “Getting to Grips with Goobi on the Lyell Albums”
//The Cultural Heritage Digitisation service team have attended the annual Association for Historical & Fine Art Photography conference for well over a decade and have contributed to presentations at the annual conference. Susan Pettigrew the studio manager was Chair of the AHFAP Libraries and Archives Special Interest Group until the end of 2023. AHFAP is an important conference for CHDS in that it’s our network connection to the UK wide community of Heritage photography and digitisation.
Continue reading “Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography Conference 2024”
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It has been a long–held desire for the CHDS to offer a 3D Digitisation service, and although not 100% there yet, we are several steps closer. Back in 2021, Connor Wimblett did an internship with us looking into the feasibility of offering 3D for the Heritage Collections. You can find out more by reading his blog here.
Continue reading “Virtual Geology”
//This spring the short but broad digitisation project, OneHealth, reached its end. The OneHealth project was focused on early animal welfare history, utilising new material brought in from a trio of organisations: Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, and the animal welfare charity OneKind. During those 6 months, we had a vast and diverse materials pass through our studios. From the historically rich early records of Edinburgh Zoo to morbidly curious Veterinary School implements to the delightfully pet centric magazines of the OneKind charity, the project spanned a wide range of items.
Continue reading “Highlights of the OneHealth Project”
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Today is World Photography Day, ‘an annual celebration of the art, craft, science and history of photography.’ This year, we’d like to turn the spotlight on the amazing photographers working in the Cultural Heritage Digitisation Service by allowing them to highlight their favourite collection items they’ve photographed, and to share a piece of their own work as well. We hope their insights into the medium and their technical process will prove both interesting and informative!
Continue reading “World Photography Day 2024”
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We’ve been working on digitising The Witness for quite some time now. Here’s a little background information from our previous post on the publication: ‘A twice weekly newspaper, The Witness was created by the Church of Scotland in 1840 and edited by Hugh Miller, an influential writer, geologist and stone mason. In 1843 The Church of Scotland was faced with 200 ministers walking out citing political interference, an event which came to be known as the Disruption and led to the Free Church being established. Presbyterianism is founded on the basis that the people make the decisions, not an elite hierarchy, and the only head of the church, is God. This makes The Witness newspaper a fantastic primary source covering a significant event in Scotland’s social and religious history, and as such, a prime candidate for digitisation.’
As the editions are bound into large format volumes, we decided to contract the digitisation to a company called Autodocs. Digitisation operators Miranda and Marian then took over the quality control and processing of the files and made some fun discoveries along the way – let’s hear from them!
Continue reading “Highlights from The Witness”
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Last month, team members Marian and Miranda attended Knowledge Exchange Week, hosted by the University of Edinburgh. This was the fifth time the event had been held, and the theme was the ‘Open Library.’ The event also incorporated the Edinburgh Open Research Conference. After a whirlwind week of programming and networking, we thought it might be interesting to hear more about what they learned and experienced.
Continue reading “Knowledge Exchange Week 2024 – Reflections”
