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Springer Collection Procedures

I’m back for the second day of my internship with the Center for Railroad Photography and Art and wanted to record some of the technical parts of our process.

ScanningScanner Settings

While most of this collection has already been scanned, some needs to be scanned for the first time. Here is the process I’m using for the scanning process.

I’m scanning using Lake Forest College’s “Epson Perfection V750 Pro” scanner with the frame for negatives. I am scanning at 600 dpi in 16-bit grayscale and saving as jpg. The purpose of these scans is to create decent access copies for the Center with the option to add them to online databases (Flickr or the Center’s website) in the future so that this level of scanning is appropriate.

File Naming

Most of the files are named using the following convention: Collection Name/Box/Envelope. For example

  • Springer_02_123 = Springer Collection, Box 2, Envelope 123
  • Springer_04_067 = Springer Collection, Box 4, Envelope 67

I’m proposing that we standardize this practice across the entire collection. Additionally – to account for instances where one envelope contains multiple photos, I’m proposing that we extend this convention to be: Collection Name/Box/Envelope/Image. For example,

  • Springer_01_049_A = Springer Collection, Box 1, Envelope 49, First Image
  • Springer_01_049_B = Springer Collection, Box 1, Envelope 49, Second Image
  • Springer_01_050 = Springer Collection, Box 1, Envelope 50 (the only image).

I think it makes sense to supply the alphabetical distinction only when needed and to use letters instead of numbers because (1) it will improve computer sorting and (2) the original order (within the individual envelopes) is difficult to preserve.

Metadata

This is the core metadata for the collection

  • File Name (see above!) – This will serve as the unique identifier for each image in the collection.
  • Railroad – This collection is organized by railroad so that information will be preserved. I would imagine that acronyms and abbreviations will be replaced by the standard form of the name
  • Railroad Number – Because I lack the context, I’m transcribing as I find on the object. Again, I think standardizing to a formal, controlled vocabulary will be important at some point.
    • QUESTION – what should I do when multiple trains are listed. Should I create two fields for this data or combine them in one field?
  • Description – A few images have short (2-3 word) annotations. I wanted to preserve these notes and couldn’t think of a better field.
  • Location – I’ve seperated city from state in the spreadsheet on the basis that (1) it would be easy to combine these fields in the future and (2) this separation is easier to manipulate.
    • QUESTION – some cards contain information like “MP 60” which I’m interpreting as “Mile Post 60.” This seems like valuable metadata but data that doesn’t fit squarely in the “Location” field. Is this information worth preserving and – if so – how should I record it.
  • Date – So far, all photos have a clearly marked date. I’m recording that using the YYYY-MM-DD standard recommended by the Center.
  • Collection – This is all the Springer Collection.
  • Original Format – This collection is black and white negatives in several standard sizes.
  • Digital Format – I am creating jpegs.
  • Date Scanned – This technical metadata is recorded in the system.

As an aside, I thought it would be fun to mention two pieces of train-specific metadata I’ve encountered so far. I’ve mentioned one already – “MP 60.” Again, I think that means “mile post” but I’m really not sure. I think it would be great to record this and could be very useful to certain people in a certain context. However, it doesn’t fit with other standard vocabularies (city/state) and requires additional context to be useful.

The second train-specific information I encountered is this (2-8-4). A quick google search took me to Wikipedia where I learned that is the Whyte Notation for a particular wheel arrangement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-8-4).