Documentation

Project Progress
The project team is tracking the individual manuscripts through imaging and uploading to OPenn. As manuscripts are added to OPenn, the team is adding a direct link to the OPenn page. The complete list of manuscripts included in the project, with links to online manuscripts, can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZgoqMrYMxB75OqO9YcVOxdfwg8qRcavSrEZQjDgQ_Ig/edit?usp=sharing

Imaging
The majority of the imaging for this project is being carried out by the University of Pennsylvania Library’s Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image. In general, the Center as well as the other project parners follow the NISO standards as articulated in A Framework for Building Good Digital Collections, 3rd edition. The following represents specific standards adopted by SCETI in their capture, storage, and presentation of digital images.

  • Photography specifications:
    Archival Masters: 600 PPI 24-bit raw TIFF image; 600 PPI 24-bit LZW color image
    “Golden Thread” color target is used for every exposure. Target also includes interference pattern and inch/centimeter markings. Target is also used to check focus.
  • Standards:
    California Digital Library. CDL Guidelines for Digital Objects
    Library of Congress. Building Digital Collections: A Technical Overview
  • Image Delivery Format: Images are made available in OPenn in TIFF format for the high-resolution masters, as 300 dpi JPEG files for the web-ready files, and 72 dpi JPEG files for thumbnails.

Metadata
The page-level metadata is generated during image capture by the camera operators and collated with metadata entered by students at each institution. The information includes both descriptive and structural metadata:

  • The actual position of the page in the physical organization of the manuscript
  • The visible page number
  • Whether the page marks the beginning of a division (e.g., a chapter or a new title) or contains any marginalia or illustrations
    The ID of the corresponding image file

A copy of the current metadata spreadsheet template used by OPenn for the ingestion of medieval manuscripts is online for review here: http://tinyurl.com/OPennMetadata

Additional documentation for metadata, including post-imaging metadata enhancement, can be found here: