Scanning training

Today Brad and one of the graduate student assistants took me through the scanning procedures. There is a written procedure, but it's a bit outdated, so one thing I'll be doing is updating those procedures. I did some practice scans and then worked on the 1st piece in the bound volume I'm cataloging. I discovered that for that type of paper and printing, the grayscale option worked the best. With black and white scanning, the dark spots were too dark and it picked up every little dark fleck and imperfection on the page. It just depends on the type of material you're trying to scan as to whether color, grayscale, or black and white will work the best. Sometimes it takes a little bit of trial and error and comparison. It's tricky trying to scan an older bound volume - it's not terribly fragile and the paper is in really good condition, but I worry that the all the handling will have an adverse effect. I guess that's one reason that it's important to do it right the first time, so that you don't have to handle it more than you absolutely have to.

I will also be looking at other institutions' scanning procedures and standards to see if what Gaylord is doing is comprable (I'm fairly certain that it is).

Hours today: 3
Total hours completed: 49.5