PDF/A format

This is one person's blog about her experience as a DAS student in the Digital Archives Specialist certificate program that Society of American Archivists is offering.  I found this one post particularly helpful and wanted to share it. Also think the certificate program  looks quite solid.  Check it out
Diary of a DAS Student

Metadata Deluxe / Top 10 List of Embedded Metadata Properties

Here is a great resource from the Embedded Metadata work group of the Visual Resources Association.  Its crosswalks all the common fields in most web and photo software tools: Check it out!

Metadata Deluxe / Top 10 List of Embedded Metadata Properties

NARAtions » National Archives Digitization Tools Now on GitHub

Just want to alert you to a great blog from the National Archives.  This post in particular discusses some digitisation tool that they are developing and making available. Check it out: NARAtions » National Archives Digitization Tools Now on GitHub

BPOC Express: Shared Digital Asset Management in a private cloud in under 6 months | Balboa Park

BPOC Express: Shared Digital Asset Management in a private cloud in under 6 months.

Check out the great work Balboa Park in San Diego has done in developing a collaborative DAM in this write up which they did.


BPOC Express: Shared Digital Asset Management in a private cloud in under 6 months | Balboa Park:
Overview

Flatbeds VS Digital CopyStands

There has been a very interesting discussion on the Visual Resources Association (VRA) list serve comparing scanning stations that are flatbed scanners and those are copystands with a digital camera.  The digital copy stand seems to be the favorite among those with extensive workflows because of its consistency and speed.  However, when you are scanning printed material which has been printed using a dot pattern such as most books, brochures and programs, people seem to lean towards the flatbed.  The problem with dot patterns and half tones is moire patterning which is defined at wikipedia.org.as "moiré pattern (pronounced /mwaˈreɪ/ in English, [mwaʁe] in French) is an interference pattern created, for example, when two grids are overlaid at an angle, or when they have slightly different mesh sizes."  Thus, you have pixels and you have dots of ink, which results in moire or ripples across your scan.
Many find a flatbed scanner, which was described by a digital copyststand advocate as a digital camera with a very shallow depth of field, the preferred method with this type of material, because most scanning software have a  descreening function. For those curious, at this time the Epson 10000XL appears to be the flatbed of choice.
However, if you are using the copystand with digital camera set up, some "tricks" of the trade were shared.  The basic one appears to be to rotate the original material, shoot it and then straighten it in Photoshop. The rotation is minimum, about 8 degrees and should be done by trial and error as different printers have different dot patterns.
Another trick offered by the generous VRA listees was to correct  bleed-through from the backing page, by using a sheet of matte black paper can help prevent this, and sometimes help minimize background “checkerboard.”

My thanks to the VRA List, in particular: Rebecca A. Moss, Howard Brainen, Eileen Fry, Mark Olson, Chris Strasbaugh and Ross Wolcott.
For those looking for more information about scanning stations, you can look at Califa's Digital Information Forum   where I have placed several scanning articles and images of scanning stations.

Did you catch the FADGI?

A new alphabet soup for you FADGI - Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative is a great resource for the latest in digital guidelines. Check it out at http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/stillimages/