From: technews <technews@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Smithsonian Exhibit Uses Digital-Imaging (Chron of Higher
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 08:24:03 -0600
Friday, December 10, 1999
Smithsonian's History Museum Puts Digitization on Display
By FLORENCE OLSEN
The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History opened its
first digital-imaging exhibit Thursday, giving visitors a "live" look at the
museum's efforts to open more of its collections to researchers anywhere in
the world.
The 500-square-foot exhibit, called "DigiLab," shows how the Smithsonian
makes digital reproductions of two- and three-dimensional objects. In the
imaging lab, which is the centerpiece of the exhibit, three-dimensional
objects are placed on a rotating turntable and photographed with a
digital-video camera so that scholars and others will be able to view them
from all sides.
Smithsonian officials say that space and other limitations have made it too
expensive for their museums to display more than about 1 per cent of the
documents and objects in their climate-controlled storage areas. About 20
million people visit the Smithsonian museums every year, but the institution
records nearly 200 million visits to its World-Wide Web site
(http://www.si.edu), museum officials say.
By no means will the Smithsonian attempt to digitize all of the 140 million
items it owns, says David Allison, who is curator of computers and chairman
of the information-technology and society division at the history museum.
But the DigiLab, along with similar digitizing activities under way in other
Smithsonian museums, promises to make more of their archives available for
researchers to examine on line, no matter where they're working.
Among the first items to be digitized will be the history museum's
collection of working models that have been submitted along with patent
applications, Mr. Allison says. In the multi-year project, the
best-organized and most-popular collections will be digitized first, he
says. Researchers will gain access to the material on the Internet or CD-ROM
disks.
The lab is equipped with a large-format inkjet printer, a digital-photograph
printer, and a large-format image scanner. It also has two slide scanners, a
pair of computer workstations for Web-page design, a digital-video camera,
and several servers for managing the production processes. Student interns
and other museum volunteers do the actual scanning of photographs, drawings,
letters, and other objects.
No original objects will be discarded as a result of the digitizing project,
Mr. Allison says. But Smithsonian museum officials do not expect to gain
additional display space in Washington within the next five or 10 years. As
the trend toward digitization shows no sign of diminishing, Mr. Allison
says, curators must learn to be comfortable in "the new marriage between
electronic exhibitry and physical exhibitry."
The DigiLab is the first significant enhancement to the history museum's
Graphic Arts Hall in 28 years, says Stan Nelson, a museum specialist in
printing arts. A companion exhibit shows how digitization is changing
printing processes. It begins with a page from Gutenberg's 42-line Bible,
published in 1455, and closes with a Rocket e-Book, an electronic book that
weighs 22 ounces and holds 4,000 pages.
Hewlett-Packard Company, Intel Corporation, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. Inc.,
Polaroid Corporation, and other high-tech companies donated money and
equipment for the DigiLab and companion exhibit.
Museum officials say they hope to find enough students and other volunteers
to keep the DigiLab open seven days a week. The live exhibit is one of few
instances in which the Smithsonian has put its ongoing work on display, says
Jim Wallace, director of imaging, printing, and photographic services for
the Smithsonian.
For at least six years, the Smithsonian museums have been using digital
photography to document items in the collection, Mr. Wallace says. But the
museums have not accepted digital photography for archiving purposes,
because there is not yet an accepted standard for archiving digital images.
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Copyright 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education