My History of Digitization

It took me a couple of days to realize that I do have a history, with digitization of art--but largely, not for preservation purposes. I was lucky to work at company called Dyenamix off and on during undergrad at NYU. Basically they're a textile firm-they dye (hence the punny name), screenprint, handpaint, and digitally print fabrics. Among my many tasks was a serious mix of art handling, scanning, and retouching. I didn't really know what I was doing when I was handed a stack of original Louise Bourgeois watercolors and told to make them magically appear on the computer. The originals were at least 14"x17". That's obviously bigger than a flatbed scanner. It was really hard. Watercolor paper does not scan well. I invented file naming conventions. I took up a lot of disk space. I spent a lot of time in Photoshop, piecing as many as 6 separate scans together into one monster master file for each painting that would get cleaned up by the pros for printing on fabric. It was a pretty cool process and you can see some results in the portfolio.

That digitization wasn't necessarily for posterity, although I can tell you that the scans are archived somewhere, because I burned hundreds of discs at some point. Again, I knew how to burn data CDs, but we didn't really have naming conventions or even a good system--just CD binders and printouts of thumbnails. I guess I know more than I thought I did, but already I am looking back and cringing at what a messy job I did.

The first time I saw negative scanners in action, in junior year of high school on an exchange (to a much nicer school) in 2002, I was pretty shocked. I thought, what's the fun in that? I'd rather be in the darkroom. I can appreciate this use much more now, though I'm not sure I trust myself with scans anymore than I do with storing negatives. Finally, I've scanned my own artwork for print or sharing online; I hadn't thought of this as archiving. I'm sure I've thrown out lots of these scans but for things I've given away or sold, now that I think about it, it's nice to have a little digital archive.

I'm in this class (albeit late) for the universal reason that libraries, archives and museums are constantly changing and digitization is a huge part of that. I'm a big fan of analog, so I'm happy to read that there is a scholarly consensus that we cannot 100% reproduce things digitally. That admission is good enough for me. Improving and increasing access is absolutely part of librarianship, and digitization can do just that. Although I am not as much of a Luddite as I sometimes tell myself, I have a lot to learn, and I'm looking forward to adjusting my thinking even further.

As far as Googlehands, the term was coined by Yara Flores in an article called "The Art of Mechanical Reproduction," available here. They are the mysterious hands of digitizers sometimes spotted in Google Books. I think it's marvelous.