METRO and a group of eleven members paid a site visit to the Frick Art Reference Library's Digital Lab
on November 16, 2006. Don Swanson and his staff talked about their
work, demonstrated equipment, answered questions, and left me and
others quite impressed with their operation.
The Frick is currently working with ARTstor to digitize thousands of glass plate negatives and interpositives. The glass plate negatives are scanned in-house using a Better Light scanning back and interpositives are sent to an outside vendor for conversion.
The Frick captures materials at 900 dpi, 16 bit grayscale, which results in a file size of around 120 MB.
The scans are then saved to (1) local hard drive (2) cds (3) network server (offsite) and (4) tape (offsite). In addition, the original glass plate negatives are saved in acid free folders and put in cold storage. Four backup copies of the digital image, using four storage formats, saved in three different physical locations, and retention of the original. That's pretty darn good.
These images are available via ARTstor.
In addition to giving us a tour of the digital lab, Don showed us the conservation department where the staff was meticulously piecing together the bindings of old books, the spotless stacks (not even a speck of dust), and the beautiful reading room.
Thanks to Don, everyone at the Frick, and all who attended.
Image: Helen Clay Frick (and dog) c. 1918, scanned from a spoiling nitrate negative
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