Digitizing the Oldest Black Newspaper in America—One Photograph at a Time
When John H. Murphy founded The Afro-American newspaper in 1892, his goal was to combine three separate church publications into a single-page newsletter. Murphy was both a former slave and a Civil War veteran, and in the Reconstruction era, The Afro-American served to inform and unite his Maryland community. Little did he know, it would […]
Preservation Hesitation? Just Get Started!
Do you have a historical collection that deserves digital preservation but keep coming back to the same problems? Maybe your project is so extensive you don’t know where to start, or you simply can’t afford an archival project right now. Even if you’ve owned a collection for decades, you’ve probably noticed more recent emphasis on […]
Generate Revenue from Your Online Collection
Is the perceived cost of digitally archiving your collection making you hesitant to move forward with an important project? Monetizing archival collections may be the answer! Monetizing an archival collection involves electronically transforming the collection in a way that allows people to access it online for a fee. You use the digital collection to provide […]
5 Factors That Can Affect the Timeframe of Your Archival Project
Is it finally time to kick off that digitization project you’ve been delaying for so long? Many collectors don’t realize how much time and planning go into digitizing a box of old photo albums, let alone a collection that fills an entire room or basement. If you’re applying for funding to help your or your […]
Transcription from the Crowd: Three Success Stories
The cost of paying for expert text recognition, proofreading, and quality assurance do not need to be prohibitory barriers to the completion of a digital library, recent stories show. Projects ranging from preserving digital records of the stars to documenting the civil rights and suffrage movements have employed volunteers to transcribe historical documents. Whether dedicated […]
Who Will Use This Collection and How? All About Use Cases
Use cases. It’s simply a term for capturing the functional requirements of a digital library. Each use case is written from the user’s perspective, defining who they are and how they want and expect to use the digital collection. Understanding use cases is essential for determining how a collection will be best delivered, and what […]
How Do You Build Effective Search? (Hint: Metadata and Tagging!)
Does your digitization partner know your collection? Search results, whether too broad or broken, often reveal how well archivists know your material. Proper use of metadata and tagging, from general information to specific facets only relevant to your collection, make all the difference. For a company like Anderson Archival, the digitization process is only the […]
How It All Began: The Start of Anderson Archival
Before Anderson Archival, there was Anderson Technologies. It might seem strange that an IT company would branch into digital archiving, but the story behind this expansion showcases what clients of both firms know about us: integrity, dedication, and client focus are core values at the heart of all we do. Our hallmarks include expertise and […]
Protecting and Preserving History in Uncertain Times
What is the duty of a library or museum? Take a moment to come up with some answers. Did you say… To preserve knowledge? To protect the history and cultures of past peoples? To share that knowledge and history with the public? To help people learn about the world around them? You probably didn’t answer […]
Creating a Digital Library
Do your organization’s historical books or records need digitizing? Could you benefit from a searchable database of digitized documents? Scanning then, digitally cleaning and watermarking those scans begins the digital preservation process. Once complete, optical character recognition (OCR) and detailed quality assurance can be performed. These steps create electronic libraries that will protect your documents […]
