Week 13: Digitizing books

ith my collection now finished, I have the opportunity to learn how to digitize archive material. Digitizing archive material allows for books, newspaper or other material to be transformed into an online format. This then can be accessed by more people and provides a safe keeping of the books contents for books that are in poor condition. To do this, the archivist selects the type of work they would like to digitize and places it in the capturing center. The capturing center is a stand that holds the book open to the pages you want to digitize. Then using computer software, cameras that are mounted on the top of the machine take the pictures of the book and brings them to a screen where they can be edited and put together. This is a long task, for each individual page has to be digitized and then flipped to the next page and then the process is repeated. This week I am starting to digitize one of Loyola's rare books from 1721, called: "New Opera's, with Comical Stories, and Poems, on Several Occasions, Never Before Printed, Being the Remaining Pieces" and written by Thomas D'Urfey.