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Digital Technologies Equipment & Facilities

The Digital Technologies department at the J. Willard Marriott Library provides digitization services for practically all materials, including print (bound volumes and loose sheets), maps, slides, negatives (including glass plates), audio and video, even rare and fragile materials like papyrus. Using a wide array of hardware and software, we scan physical materials, generate digital images, attach metadata to those objects, and load them into our digital asset database to provide general-public access via the Internet.

SOFTWARE

The partial list of the software programs we use includes:

  • Adobe Photoshop CS3 graphics software is used extensively for image manipulation, correction and restoration. Photoshop is also used for text formatting and file compression and conversion.
  • Adobe Acrobat Professional portable document format (PDF) software is used to edit, create and publish PDF documents. Acrobat Pro is also used to apply optical character recognition (OCR) to PDF files. 
  • Adobe Audition is used to mix and edit digitally converted audio.
  • Adobe Premiere Pro andApple Final Cut Pro are used to edit digital video before making it available online.
  • ABBYY FineReader is an optical character recognition (OCR) software. Image files of scanned text are “read” by ABBYY and the resulting transcript file (along with the image file) is uploaded to the digital collections as a full-text searchable document.
  • CONTENTdm (CDM) is digital asset management software. CONTENTdm houses the digital files and their associated metadata, maintains a long-term storage archive, and makes everything available to the Internet through a series of browse, search, and other display templates. One of its biggest advantages is that it can support all forms of materials in a single database. At present we have 150 individual collections and more than 340,000 digital objects in our main CDM database. We also have a second instance of CDM. This database houses our Utah Digital Newspapers, which contains more than 850,000 pages of historical Utah newspapers.

EQUIPMENT

HIGH-SPEED, AUTOMATED BOOK SCANNER

Kirtas 2400
The Kirtas APT BookScan 2400RA incorporates two 16 megapixel Canon EOS-1DS Mark II digital cameras to photograph both right- and left-hand pages simultaneously through the cameras' 24-105mm Zoom EF lenses. The patented SmartCradle™ Dynamic Book Handler holds the book open at exactly 110 degrees throughout the process, providing low-stress support for rare and fragile books. Meanwhile, the SureTurn™ robotic arm reduces the need for manipulating pages by hand. The computer-controlled arm uses an adjustable vacuum system, in tandem with page fluffers, to gently pick up and turn one page at a time.

The Kirtas is used to scan hard- and soft-cover books and loose sheets.  It scans at a much higher speed than traditional flatbed scanners, up to 40 pages per minute. Using its proprietary software we can easily create digital facsimiles of an original book, even making it print-ready for our Electronic Book Machine housed in the Library Store.

OTHER SCANNERS

FLATBED SCANNERS

Epson Expression 10000XL Graphic Arts Scanners
A traditional flatbed color image scanner using up to 2400 dpi optical resolution, it processes material up to 12.2" x 17.2".  It is frequently used to scan image boards, photographs, and text documents.  Some of our flatbeds include automatic document feeders for multiple-page scanning and transparency units that can scan transparencies up to 12.2" x 16.5".

CreoScitex Eversmart Jazz scanners
A flatbed color image and transparency scanner, it has a 12” x 17” scan area and a 2540 maximum dpi. It is used to scan large and irregular negatives, 35mm filmstrips and slides, as well as print photographs. 

LARGE FORMAT SCANNERS

Colortrac SmartLf GxT 42
This scanner provides fast, high-quality scans of large-format photographs, maps, posters and other documents that require a wide color gamut and high dynamic range. It has a 42” image width and 1200 maximum dpi. It is primarily used for map scanning.

Zeutschel OS10000
A glare-free, large-format color scanner with a flat book cradle. It is used to scan fold-out maps, books and other objects up to 24” x 34”. For larger items, it is used to scan the object in sections which are later digitally stitched together. 

SLIDE SCANNER
Nikon SF 210 Super CoolScan 5000
This scanner allows batch scanning of 50 mounted slides with up to 4000 dpi optical resolution.  It is also able to digitize 35mm film strips. The automatic slide loader allows for batch processing and more efficient digitization of slides.

CAMERAS

Hasselblad H2D Digital Camera
This high-end camera has Hasselblad HC lenses with integral leaf shutter, F2.8 aperture, 32s-1/800s shutter speed, built-in flash, 90-degree reflex viewfinder with diopter adjustment, 4080 x 5440 pixel image size, and 50-400 ISO ratings. It is used to scan large or delicate originals, three dimensional objects and for hand-held shots.

Nikon D70 Digital SLR
This camera has 6.31 Megapixel CCD giving 3008 x 2000 pixel images, 1/8,000 maximum shutter speed, flash sync at up to 1/500, auto white balance, and TTL color matrix metering using 1005 pixel sensor. It is used to scan large or delicate originals, three dimensional objects and for hand-held shots. 

LARGE FORMAT PRINTERS

Epson Stylus Pro 10600
A 44"-wide printer, it has a maximum resolution of 1440 x 720 dpi and 5 picoliter droplet size. It incorporates advanced ink, print head, and printer engine technologies to produce photographic quality output. It is used for printing high-quality, large-format copies of artwork, architectural drawings, maps, etc.

HP DesignJet 500
A 42"-wide, ink jet, color printer, it has a maximum resolution of 1200 x 600 dpi. This printer is used primarily for temporary Library posters and other promotional materials.

AUDIO-VIDEO

Canopus ADVC110 Bi-Directional Analog-to-Digital Convertor
It converts audio and video analog signals to digital.  It is used in conjunction with the analog audio-visual playback devices to digitize analog materials.

Tascam 202 MKIV audio cassette deck
A dual cassette deck, it is primarily used with the Canopus (above) to playback and digitize audio cassettes for online streaming and digital preservation of the originals.

Canon Vixia HV40 High-Definition Mini–DV Camcorder
A Mini-DV camcorder, it records in both Standard and High-Definition. It is also used as a playback device to convert Mini-DV tape to other formats for online streaming and digital preservation of the originals.

Panasonic PV-7662 Metal Head VHS Video Deck
A VHS player/recorder, it is used primarily as a playback device to digitize VHS videotapes for online streaming and digital preservation of the originals.