17:610:553 DIGITAL LIBRARIES
Tefko Saracevic, Michael Lesk
Fall 2002

Assignment 3

Readings on Scanning & Conversion

a) The digital imaging tutorial at
http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/
It is pretty accessible.

b) A general introduction can be found on the following website:
http://www.saculturalheritage.org/workshops/july2000/modules/imaging/scanning/
Read the bits about OCR principles (not necessarily the sections about
which scanner to buy).

c) More than you need to know about scanning is in the following source:
http://www.rit.edu/~661www1/sub_pages/digibook.pdf
You can stop after page 31.

d) The first 25 pages of:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/imls/IMLS-CULfinalreport2.pdf
are interesting; note the table on the costs of the Making of America.

e) If you have access to these:
Lesk's book, chapter 3.
Michael Ester's article on Image Quality and Visual Perception, in
Leonardo, vol. 23, no. 1 pp 51-63, 1990.

Discuss:

What are some of the choices that a conversion project has to make?
What affects the answers if you are scanning
- a famous manuscript (e.g. the Declaration of Independence)
- large collections of manuscripts (e.g. the papers of some Senator)
- printed 18th or 19th century books
- recent printed material
- flat works of art (paintings, posters, ....).