PROJECT PHASES & METHODOLOGY
Original 1997 Project
In 1997 Columbia
University Libraries received funding from the
United Board for Christian Higher Education
in Asia to create a digital version of the Ling
long Women's Magazine. This
magazine is frequently requested by scholars
from all over the world because, as far as we
can determine, Columbia has the only relatively
complete run available outside of China.
Unfortunately,
because the journal had been printed on acidic
paper, its pages had become extremely brittle
and tended to break when handled. The
goal of this project was both to create a long-lived
preservation surrogate in microfilm for all
remaining volumes and issues and to make a digital
copy available online to all interested readers.
The magazine consists of text accompanied
by a large number of graphics, many in color.
Therefore, black-and-white microfilm was not
a sufficient means of preservation, nor is
it satisfactory for those scholars whose research
involves the illustrations. However,
since microfilm is still the most stable preservation
medium available, the first step was to create
a complete microfilm of the magazine according
to standard preservation procedures. The master
negative has been placed in archival storage
in perpetuity.
To create the initial digital version, the
black-and-white microfilm was scanned bitonally
at 600 dots per inch on a SunRise SRI-50 scanner
by Preservation Resources of Bethlehem, PA
(which also did the actual microfilming). The
purpose in scanning the film rather than the
original volumes was to limit the amount of
handling the brittle originals would be subjected
to. TIFF files were delivered to Columbia along
with a datafile associating each volume, issue,
and page to the correct filenames. The 600 dpi
TIFF files, stored using lossless CCITT Fax
4 compression, along with the datafile constitute
the digital archive for Ling long.
In the original 1997 project, lower-resolution
versions were then derived from the master files
by Columbia's Academic Information Systems.
For each page an inline GIF image was created
and optimized for screen viewing as a 600x1000
pixels in 4-bit gray-scale. Each page file was
also provided with an Adobe Acrobat PDF file
to permit easy printing at 300 dpi.
Project Enhancement, 2002 (Color Scans)
In 2002, it was decided that
to go back and rescan all color illustrations
and replace the bitonal versions originally
created. The new color versions were produced
in the Columbia University Libraries Preservation
Division by scanning directly from the original
volumes, using a Hewlett Packard 6100CSE flatbed
scanner. The 300 dpi, 24-bit color files are
being added to the digital archive, while lower
resolution versions are being produced for on-screen
and printing purposes.
Heidelberg Contribution of Additional
Material, 2005
In 1999 Univeristy of Heidelberg had located
additional Ling long issues that were missing
from Columbia's run of the journal, and offered
to digitize them for us. For
various reasons, this work wasn't completed
until January 2005. Columbia originally
prepared the following specification document
for Heidelberg to use: Digitization
guidelines prepared for Heidelberg by Columbia,
Dec. 1999 (pdf). These original
guidelines had recommended 2-bit bitonal
for black and white pages and 24-bit for
color, but by 2004 when Heidelberg actually
began the scanning, we changed the recommendation
such that both b&w and color originals
were to be scanned at 24-bit color (RGB).
Below is a list of issues for which Heidelberg
contributed at least some content:
linglong_1931_009, linglong_1931_015,
linglong_1931_016, linglong_1931_018, linglong_1931_021,
linglong_1931_022, linglong_1931_023, linglong_1931_026,
linglong_1931_029, linglong_1931_030, linglong_1931_033,
linglong_1931_036, linglong_1931_037, linglong_1932_044,
linglong_1932_045, linglong_1932_046, linglong_1932_047,
linglong_1932_051
Ling Long Site Relaunch, 2005
During 2005, Columbia University Libraries'
Digital Program worked with other groups on
campus to entirely replace the original web
site and presentation:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/linglong/
All original
tiffs were reprocessed into 550 x 740 pixel
jpegs for viewing purposes. A new page
turner was developed and new contextual essays
were created for the site.
The 12/1/2005 press release is available here:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/news/libraries/2005/2005-12-01.ling_lung_website.html
The new Heidelberg content was integrated into
the site as part of the relaunch.
Revised: 7/2002, 12/2005,
4/2008
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