Images in Heritage and Culture

IMAGES IN HERITAGE & CULTURE ’11Diversity
Fiona Bradley
Head of Design and Photography,
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Wednesday, 23rd March 2011

Kew Gardens and Wakehurst
800 staff working across the organisation
Science, horticulture, conservation, visitor attraction
Defra
To inspire and deliver science-based plant conservation worldwide, enhancing the quality of life.
1.5 million visitors to both gardens with nearly 4 million web visits
Microsoft, Adobe, TOAD, Extensis
Windows, Macintosh and Unix
3

Head of Design and Photography
Providing support for the organisation
Design mostly for visitor attraction, fundraising and publishing
Photography for events, festivals, art and books from archives , Kew’s scientific work, retail, web
In house photographic image collection over 150,000
Commercial image library
5

Millennium Seed Bank Partnership

Conservation
Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Partnership is the largest ex situ plant conservation project in the world.
Photographs of collecting, habitats, plants and seeds as well as the scientific work in the laboratories and the actual building
A great need for image management
9000 fully data based in Portfolio taken by a variety of staff
Images used for publicity, education, scientific research and to generate revenue
Available to staff
8

Preserved plant specimens

For taxonomic study
Collections accessible online
Reduce manual handling of specimens
Provide a secure digital back up of specimens
Digitisation projects funded by Andrew W. Mellon foundation
Available through our website and Jstor
www.kew.org/herbcat
www.jstor.org
12

Scanned by inverted A3 flatbed scanner
Bulky or those larger than A3 specimens photographed
Team of 14 digitisers
200,000 scanned to date
Scanned as 600 dpi tiffs
File size 200 mb
Metadata exists in two places
Image metadata in TOAD
Subject metadata in Herbcat http://apps.kew.org/herbcat/navigator.do
14

Photographs

For promotional and fundraising purposes
Two in house photographers and other staff
Images used for promotion, information, education, print publishing, web, revenue generation
Nikon cameras most widely used
Photographs saved as DNG (Adobe digital negative)
Images size 10 – 250 mb
IPTC metadata on import plus keywords embedded using Adobe Lightroom and Portfolio
In use daily by multiple designers and picture researchers for searching and downloading
Search and retrieval speed vital
17

Directors’ correspondence

One of the largest collections from Kew’s official archives
More than 40,500 images digitised, dating back to 1840’s
Unique resource containing first hand accounts and observations on botany, ethnobotany, history, natural history, science and politics
Used for historical, botanical, scientific and political research as well as members of the public
Funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
20

A team of four digitisation officers
Each item is first catalogued
The digitally imaged using a flatbed scanner or camera
Images scanned at 300 dpi tiffs
84 mb tiff files
Each item read in detail
Important Metadata: people, date, places, subject, plant names, increasing access and awareness
Available in house and from JSTOR Plant science website (http://plants.jstor.org/)
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The Need for Content
Kew’s collection art and artefacts
Each item is catalogued
Digitally imaged using a flatbed scanner or camera
Each item read in detail
Images scanned at 600ppi / 300 ppi tiffs
Funded by Andrew W Mellon Foundation
23

Kew’s art collection
Over 200,000 prints, drawings and paintings in the library
8 - 10,000 digitised on request from researchers or for commercial use
Some have been digitisation projects for example, Roxburgh and Marianne North
Flat artwork scanned using Epson 10000XL A3 flatbed scanner
Books photographed using a specific unit made up of a iCAM book cradle and Cambo Camera, Leaf Aptus – II 10 digital back
Basic embedded metadata is added by photographer
Images generally unavailable
24

Collections
Marianne North paintings
Over 800 paintings, photographed after restoration
Cambo Camera and Leaf Aptus – II 10 digital back
Metadata being embedded by a volunteer using Adobe Bridge
Available on commercial image library
Roxburgh
Over 2500 illustrations - all digitised
Photographed using Sinar back
Team of four catalogued using TOAD
Available online, used by scientists, commercially desirable
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Evidence of success and future goals
Importance of digital asset management is recognised
Obtaining large scale external funding
Training existing staff and employing project teams
Developing procedures tailored to subject matter
To establish a long term corporate approach to image management and have the tools to support it
Phase out manual processes and duplication of effort and content
DAM becomes the system of choice
28

Tips & tricks
Ensure the most appropriate hard and software is used
Establish a relevant directory structure
All users to be trained in effective use of systems
Metadata should be ample and relevant for the collection
Make use of available online tools for keywording
Archive and back up centrally
Ensure that the assets are used
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Why?
Safety of collections by reducing handling
Insurance against loss or damage
To make our information more accessible
Desire to develop revenue streams
Capitalise on funding opportunities
To fulfill the demand around the organsiation for DAM
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Future improvements for Portfolio
To keep track of data integrity such as detecting duplicates or corruption
To search multiple catalogues quickly
Easier creation of custom fields
Reporting on usage
To interface with Oracle UCM
Exporting to pre defined colour and file types
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Thank you!
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