Scan Method: - 8 Diaries Time Study

Feb 18, 2024    Dave Allen:   "Time Study" to scan 8 diaries

After the CHS collection items get numbered, they are (in most cases), scanned or photographed.

Today I "scanned" portions of 8 old diaries by C.N. Carpenter. These are multi-page booklets, typically 3' x 5", of handwritten notes. The first picture is the cover next to  a Post It Note with Item Number and a brief description, followed by several other pictures (maximum 15) to give the researcher a sense of the contents. The inside front cover with owners name and inside back cover is included, as is back cover.




These pics are then named with item #  (as in "2357-01.jpg"), and stored in a computer file folder of same name.

It took about 2 hours to photograph and process files for the 8 diaries. The bulk of the time was photographing the several inside pages.  It would take an hour if all I did was the cover , name page and back cover.

Adding the items to the database and uploading pics to Airtable are a further step - another 45 minutes.

TOTAL TIME 3 hours for 8 diaries  - scan---process---Airtable








We are doing what I call "Inventory Scans" , which are not meant to be super quality, but just enough to identify the item, It takes less time to, for example, to take an Iphone picture of a large photo, than to scan it at high resolution. "inventory scans" take up less computer space, and are easily sent by email and/or uploaded to a database.  The thinking is that, since we are not discarding the original items, a high resolution scan could be done when desired.




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