Digital Production Unit Update

Here is a sample of some of the projects that the Library Digital Production Unit has been working on in recent days.

Dartmouth College Photographic Files:

This long term, ongoing project digitizes a large collection of photographs from the Rauner Special Collections Library. To date we have scanned approximately 17,000 photographs. The physical collection is currently housed in file cabinets in Rauner and is a "diverse collection of approximately 80,000 photographs related to Dartmouth College, Hanover and the surrounding area. Images date from the early years of photography (ca. 1850s) to the present and include images of nearly all aspects of Dartmouth College life".

Dartmouth Winter Carnival Posters

A collection of 91 Dartmouth Winter Carnival Posters dating back to 1911 when the Carnival began. New posters are added to the collection as they are available in the Rauner Special Collections Library. Recently we scanned the posters from 2009 to 2013 on our new reprographic system.

Manuscripts Relating to Samson Occom and Eleazar 

Wheelock's Early Indian Students

The letters and other writings of Samson Occom, an important figure in the founding of Dartmouth College. "The manuscripts, circa 1743-1794, document Occom's early student life under Wheelock's tutelage, his life as a minister at Montauk and Mohegan, his trip to England to raise money for what would become Dartmouth College, as well as personal reflections on his life as an educated Indian in Colonial America." This project is nearing completion. Most of our recent work involves correcting problems with the scanned images when they are discovered.

Sino Viet Ritual Texts

These three unique manuscripts of Buddhist-Taoist rituals in classical Chinese and Vietnamese Nom date back to 1924. They contain practical Buddhist-Taoist rituals on death, healing and natural disasters. We have completed scanning these manuscripts and we are in a post-production phase in preparation for them to be uploaded to the Dartmouth Digital Collections website. 

Digital Transitions DT RG3040 Reprographic System

In December the Dartmouth Digital Program purchased a highend reprographic system housed in the Digital Production Unit. The system includes a large copy stand, a custom made camera with a Phase One digital back, a lighting system and few other bells and whistles. To date we have used the camera to photograph Dartmouth Winter Carnival Posters from the last five years. And we are in the process of incorporating the system into out Photo Files and Dartmouth Dissertations workflows. 

To see all of our digital collection visit: Dartmouth Digital Collections at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/digital/collections/index.html

by William B. Ghezzi