Blog topic: Digitization
Imaging Ginsberg's "Howl" Manuscript
We’re lucky in the Digital Production Group to see a wide variety of materials come across our imaging platforms. We get to see and handle the highlights of all the collections as curators and bibliographers bring us the best in their collections to digitize for research, classroom teaching, and online access. But does our every day become humdrum, when you see an original Beethoven score one day, a priceless map the next, and a gorgeous gold leaf medieval manuscript the third?
In celebration of Allen Ginsberg's 91st birthday this June 3, I asked our lead photographer Wayne Vanderkuil a few questions about his experience photographing Allen Ginsberg’s Howl manuscript – an original draft featuring numerous annotations and corrections. It is considered one of the great works of American literature, the symbol for the Beat Generation, and the subject of an infamous obscenity trial.
Piano roll scanner update
It has been some time since there has been a report on the Player Piano Project, but there has been a great deal of activity toward the design and construction of a piano roll scanner. We are working with Anthony Robinson in England who is a player piano enthusiast and the designer of a roll scanner which we believe is one of the best scanners in operation to date. Anthony graciously and generously agreed to work with us to create a scanner that would handle scanning large numbers of rolls easily and efficiently.
3D models in Anthropology
In Spring 2016 Anthropology Professor Krish Seetah partnered with the Stanford Libraries to develop an interactive, digital repository of 3D osteological objects to serve as the materials for his teaching.
Three new online exhibits
The University Archives is pleased to annouce the availability of three new online exhibits: Board of Trustees Records, Faculty Senate Records, and Stanford Publications.
Artifact Atlas now on GitHub
The AV Artifact Atlas has been one of the Stanford Media Preservation Lab's longest running projects (for background on what it is, see this short 2013 post), but recently it has been moved to GitHub. Update your links!
AVAA site: https://bavc.github.io/avaa/
Link to GitHub repository: https://github.com/bavc/avaa
As always, contributors are most welcome, and hopefully the site's new home on GitHub will encourage engagement. Please help us:
- Edit content
- Add new content
GIS Day @Stanford is coming, November 16th!
GIS Day is an annual celebration of geospatial technologies, held on the Wednesday of Geography week. The Stanford Geospatial Center uses GIS Day as an opportunity to connect Stanford researchers to the cutting edge of geospatial technologies, services and applications through talks, workshops and other activities. This year, we'll have analysts, developers and scientists from DigitalGlobe, Mapbox, CARTO, NASA, The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and more, talking about their work to leverage geospatial data and technologies using machine learning, drones, satellite imagery, and historical data!
An interdisciplinary solution to sound recording preservation
Earlier this year the Stanford Media Preservation Lab and Conservation Lab were tasked with figuring out how to playback severely warped paper based disc sound recordings. The recordings in question are from a three disc set titled Man-Talk by Three Great Western Stars and each one-sided disc in the set features a single monologue by John Wayne, Bill Elliott, or Johnny Mack Brown.