Digitization Projects

Do you think the future is now?

The following digitization projects are substantial and interesting to the eye.

(1) LIFE Photo Archive 

“Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.”

10.5 million images (primarily negatives) dating from 1936 to 2000.
"This collection of images currently represents over 2 million photographs.
The size of the archive will continue to increase as more images are scanned."

300 dpi color/grayscale scanning

Metadata collection

High-volume daily deliveries
Ultra Density Optical (UDO) and hard drives; Blu-Ray drives

Dedicated staff resources

"Known as LIFE’s Photo Archive, the project is a digitization of the historic photographic images taken for LIFE magazine, which printed from 1936 to 1972 and again from 1978 to 2000 ... As of 2010, the LIFE Photo Archive on Google was among the largest professional photography collections on the web and one of the largest scanning projects ever undertaken." 

LIFE is a prime historical resource to all as it has literally documented history for decades. The digitization effort in this project is enormous and I think it wise of LIFE to partner with Google to achieve these results in access. The photo archive is also shared within Getty Images.

Digital and Analog Document, Book and Film Scanning and Processing. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2015, from http://www.thecrowleycompany.com/case-studies/the-life-photo-archive-sees-the-light-of-day-via-crowley-imaging/


(2) The New York Public Library's "Drugstore Photographs, or, A Trip Along the Yangtze River, 1999, By Dylan Stone" 

"Conceptual artist and photographer Dylan Stone created Drugstore Photographs or A Trip Along the Yangtze River, 1999 to explore the intersection of art and documentation in an archive. The physical collection consists of wooden cabinets, snapshot photographs, archival boxes, Manhattan map segments, and acrylic paint. All images are copyright Dylan Stone."

As a native New Yorker, Dylan Stone took thousands of photographs around Manhattan "needing between one and three rolls of film to photograph the four sides of an entire block."

25,428 still images digitized.

Simply processing the film through drugstore development, his prints returned in an envelope labeled "A Trip Along the Yangtze River." This work documents a pre-September 11th Manhattan and acquaints New Yorkers with the ideas of "loss, memory, and impermanence," even within ordinary scenic photographs. Digitized at the NYPL in 2014, these photographs are historic artifacts and snapshots in time made available on the NYPL website.
This was a cool feature: 

Drugstore Photographs, Or, A Trip Along the Yangtze River, 1999, by Dylan Stone - NYPL Digital Collections. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2015, from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/drugstore-photographs-or-a-trip-along-the-yangtze-river-1999-by-dylan-stone#/?tab=navigation

(3) Surveyor Digitization Project at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

NASA / JPL-Caltech /
University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory /
John AndersonSurveyor 5
This panorama of the lunar surface was assembled using
70 frames captured by the Surveyor 5 spacecraft.

"A project to digitize more than 90,000 images taken by NASA’s five Surveyor spacecraft in the 1960s has revealed early hints of never-before-seen treasures captured by America’s first robotic lunar landers."

"The Surveyors were NASA's first probes to soft-land on the moon, and as little as 2 percent of their images have ever been seen. A set of the program's original film reels has been stored at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory for decades."

Jason Davis, Surveyor Film Reels

 The Surveyor digitization project commenced in March and just finished scanning last week! (as stated on November 23, 2015)

NASA / JPL-Caltech / Lunar and Planetary Laboratory /
Animation by Jason Davis
Surveyor 7 scoop animation

"The project team is now starting the arduous task of formatting the images for submission to NASA’s Planetary Data System, the agency's master archive of space imagery. After that, anyone will be able to browse and download the pictures for free."

This is a prime example of how digitization projects can provide research access, since as little as 2% of the images have been seen. It will be a great addition to the University's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory as well as NASA.

Davis, J. (n.d.). Surveyor Digitization Project Hints at Long-Lost Lunar Treasures. Retrieved November 23, 2015, from http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2015/20151123-surveyor-digitization-project-update.html