Greetings,

 

I’ve enjoyed learning how other museums deal with digital assets issues.

 

Here at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, the naming of our digital image files is based on the object’s ID number, followed by a letter for each of the unique views. (ie: Year.Accession or Loan Number.Item level: 1978.6258.1a.jpg; 1978.6258.1b.jpg; 1978.6258.1c.jpg) I’ve found that it’s easier to find an image of an object in the media (screen) drive if it’s named the same as the object. Except in rare cases, our object numbers don’t change, so this system works quite well for us.

 

We put a note in the media record, Description field to indicate if it is a scanned or photographed image, if it was digitally enhanced (such as color corrected using PhotoShop), the date it was imaged and who imaged it. We use the Media View field in the media record to indicate front, back, proper left or right, and so on. In the Public Caption we indicate the object’s title & name.

 

In terms of image resolution, we scan full pages/photographs (8x10) at 300 dpi. However, we have many small objects (postage stamps) that require a higher resolution when scanning. For postcard size images we scan at 600-800 dpi; for single postage stamps we use 800-1200 dpi. We scan 24-bit color (3 channels, color space sRGB IEC61966-2.1) at a scale of 100%.

 

For digital camera image files, we save at 300 dpi in tiff format, at a max dimension of 10” (3,000 pixels) or as large as possible depending on the resolution of the original file.

 

Many of our objects are featured on our online website www.arago.si.edu, which employs a ‘zoomify’ feature that enlarges the object to several times its original size. Therefore, we have a need to scan or photograph small objects at a very high resolution. This has been a helpful research tool in that philatelists (stamp collectors) are able to closely examine objects online and accurately identify them when we can’t.

 

We archive our master images (highest resolution scans, saved as tiff files) either on CDs or on terabyte external drives. If a publisher requires a hi-res tiff image, we copy them images from these master files.

 

Best Wishes & Good Luck with the project,
Kate

 

 

 

Kate Diggle

Collections Database Administrator

National Postal Museum

Smithsonian Institution

Tel: (202) 633-5512

www.postalmuseum.si.edu

www.arago.si.edu

 

From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chad Petrovay
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 2:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Image Standards and Naming Conventions

 

The Walters Art Museum is undertaking a digitization project to coincide with our transition to TMS. However, we are currently stalling in the area of policy making governing how information is entered, and in particular, how images are named.

 

Can anyone share the naming convention their institution has adopted for digital image assets, or the standards for image resolution that they are using?

 

Many Thanks! ~Chad

 

Chad M Petrovay

Collections Database Administrator

The Walters Art Museum

600 North Charles Street

Baltimore, MD  21210

P: 410.547.9000 x266

F: 410.837.4846

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www.thewalters.org

 

Exhibitions:

Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt on view June 15 - August 26

Linda Day Clark: The Gee's Bend Photographs on view June 15 - September 2