Drone arranger: A large-format imaging experiment
Abstract
The digitisation of oversized materials has long been a challenge for librarians and archivists. Often, the equipment and expertise required exceed the capacity of increasingly resource-strained cultural heritage institutions, and this challenge is further exacerbated by the pressure to create surrogates that meet increasingly high and complex digital preservation standards. This can easily result in resource drains or opting not to attempt digitisation at all, leaving these materials less accessible and much of their informational value dependent on physical preservation. This paper explores an experimental collaboration between the archives and marketing and communications team at a university, which used a drone to digitise a collection of oversize military plans. A walkthrough of the process highlights the considerations and challenges, and an assessment of the results outlines benefits and drawbacks, with suggestions for potential improvements to the experiment. Ultimately, the stakeholders considered the process and output a success, and the paper argues for creative and collaborative approaches to resource-intensive processes that prioritise the strategic use of available resources and useful results over traditional methods and rigid professional standards. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at http://hstalks/business.
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Author's Biography
Liza Tietjen is the University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at Salve Regina University, where she focuses on special collections instruction and programme development, creating initiatives that connect these materials with the campus community in meaningful ways, while serving as the lone arranger for the collections. Her experience includes over a decade of work in digital collections and initiatives. She is passionate about community archiving, inclusive and reparative collection and description work, and supporting digital scholarship projects with digital collections and metadata. She holds a master of library and information studies from McGill University and a digital archives specialist certificate from the Society of American Archivists.
