Open Forum

Hello everyone. 

I am strongly considering purchasing a good scanner for our institution and I was hoping for some advice. I'm the new superintendent of a moderately-old, smallish museum. We've been running along fairly well under past leadership but I'd like to move us a little further along the professional spectrum. I want to start producing some of our own graphics in-house, and I'd very much like to migrate our photos into an electronic format.

-I'd like to be able to scan items of ledger-size and smaller. 

-We need 600 dpi quality.

-I'd like something that's at least somewhat hardy enough to withstand a little rough handling.

-I don't need a ton of whistles-and-bells but I also want decent quality and capabilities. 

-I don't want to go the cheapest route, but budget is a real consideration.

-Our museum has a smallish archives but absolutely nothing so far is scanned and we need to rectify that.

-I'd be willing to look into such hybrid options as scanner/copiers.

I'd be happy to hear any advice or considerations you might have. I'm certain that there's something that I've neglected from the above list and if you think of anything I need to consider please don't hesitate to mention it. Thanks in advance!

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Mel Glover
Superintendent
Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum
Douglas WY
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------Original Message------

Hello everyone. 

I am strongly considering purchasing a good scanner for our institution and I was hoping for some advice. I'm the new superintendent of a moderately-old, smallish museum. We've been running along fairly well under past leadership but I'd like to move us a little further along the professional spectrum. I want to start producing some of our own graphics in-house, and I'd very much like to migrate our photos into an electronic format.

-I'd like to be able to scan items of ledger-size and smaller. 

-We need 600 dpi quality.

-I'd like something that's at least somewhat hardy enough to withstand a little rough handling.

-I don't need a ton of whistles-and-bells but I also want decent quality and capabilities. 

-I don't want to go the cheapest route, but budget is a real consideration.

-Our museum has a smallish archives but absolutely nothing so far is scanned and we need to rectify that.

-I'd be willing to look into such hybrid options as scanner/copiers.

I'd be happy to hear any advice or considerations you might have. I'm certain that there's something that I've neglected from the above list and if you think of anything I need to consider please don't hesitate to mention it. Thanks in advance!

------------------------------
Mel Glover
Superintendent
Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum
Douglas WY
------------------------------

------Original Message------

Mel,

You don't describe what you need to scan, how large that material may be, or whether it is transparent or opaque (or both); all are further, definitional requirements when sourcing equipment.

I would advise against a 'multi-purpose' device, or devices designed for 'business document scanning' and/or fitted with a mechanical feed. Those are intended for copying reams of correspondence or large business documents. They also tend to be limited in resolution to 600 dpi.

Otherwise, most flatbed scanners and film scanners will have an optical resolution ≥ 2400 dpi (well beyond your 600 dpi requirement).

If you will be imaging film, compare scanners designed for that process, rather than a flatbed scanner with LEDs in the lid.

Compare models produced by optics and/or pre-press firms: Nikon, Epson, Canon, Kodak, et al. (They've done the R&D.) If you don't require a scanning bed larger than A4, you will likely find a device for ≤ $200. If you require a larger imaging bed, or if you require a film scanner, costs will be significantly higher. But with proper care a well-designed device will serve you for several (5+) years (at least), and should be considered a fixed asset.

much success!

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Kevin Coffee
Chicago IL

------Original Message------

Hello everyone. 

I am strongly considering purchasing a good scanner for our institution and I was hoping for some advice. I'm the new superintendent of a moderately-old, smallish museum. We've been running along fairly well under past leadership but I'd like to move us a little further along the professional spectrum. I want to start producing some of our own graphics in-house, and I'd very much like to migrate our photos into an electronic format.

-I'd like to be able to scan items of ledger-size and smaller. 

-We need 600 dpi quality.

-I'd like something that's at least somewhat hardy enough to withstand a little rough handling.

-I don't need a ton of whistles-and-bells but I also want decent quality and capabilities. 

-I don't want to go the cheapest route, but budget is a real consideration.

-Our museum has a smallish archives but absolutely nothing so far is scanned and we need to rectify that.

-I'd be willing to look into such hybrid options as scanner/copiers.

I'd be happy to hear any advice or considerations you might have. I'm certain that there's something that I've neglected from the above list and if you think of anything I need to consider please don't hesitate to mention it. Thanks in advance!

------------------------------
Mel Glover
Superintendent
Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum
Douglas WY
------------------------------

Good morning, all.

Thank you for your advice so far. What I plan on scanning is mostly developed photographs but we've also got a nice collection negatives and I would frankly be surprised if we did not have slides too. In the future I'm also quite certain that we'd need to reproduce such documents as pages from books, maps, and possibly posters. Having said that though, I'm thinking that those larger format items can also be scanned in increments and the individual images stitched together via Photoshop.

------------------------------
Mel Glover
Superintendent
Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum
Douglas WY

I use our scanner here at the Museum of Vision all the time - it's an Epson. I really invested some money into getting this machine and 5 years on its still doing great. I am a staff of 1 so I needed a work horse. I got the largest flat bed I had space for, that could scan multiple formats at extremely high outputs. I can now scan for the website or posters or even wall graphics. Very handy to have around! Highly recommend you get one!

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Jenny Benjamin
Director
Museum of Vision
San Francisco CA

Original Message:
Sent: 11-24-2015 10:05 AM
From: Mel Glover
Subject: Scanners

Good morning, all.

Thank you for your advice so far. What I plan on scanning is mostly developed photographs but we've also got a nice collection negatives and I would frankly be surprised if we did not have slides too. In the future I'm also quite certain that we'd need to reproduce such documents as pages from books, maps, and possibly posters. Having said that though, I'm thinking that those larger format items can also be scanned in increments and the individual images stitched together via Photoshop.

------------------------------
Mel Glover
Superintendent
Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum
Douglas WY

Hello all,

Another small museum / historical society piping in here...

We just purchased two Epson Perfection V370 machines (desktop models).  These are more than enough to scan photos, documents, and negatives for our purposes. We scan and save on our local server.  We publish some photos online, but not all.  They were under $100 each. And for a small museum just getting its feet wet with digitization, this seems to be sufficient.  The important thing is the dpi, and that you have the time and people to create your digital surrogates, and a plan for maintaining the files long-term (migrating to new servers, backup, etc,)

The only drawback to these machines is that the glass is standard 8.5 width and almost 12 long so you can't scan anything legal size or larger.  But none of our photos are larger than that. And, when we need something that larger scanned we pop over to the local printer, They are happy to do it (most of the time at no charge). We also have several friends in local businesses who have larger scanners and are willing to do so for no cost if its just one or two pieces at a time.

Best of luck!

Berlin

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Berlin Loa MLS
Museum Director
Casa Grande Valley Historical Society
Casa Grande AZ

Original Message:
Sent: 11-24-2015 12:01 PM
From: Jenny Benjamin
Subject: Scanners

I use our scanner here at the Museum of Vision all the time - it's an Epson. I really invested some money into getting this machine and 5 years on its still doing great. I am a staff of 1 so I needed a work horse. I got the largest flat bed I had space for, that could scan multiple formats at extremely high outputs. I can now scan for the website or posters or even wall graphics. Very handy to have around! Highly recommend you get one!

------------------------------
Jenny Benjamin
Director
Museum of Vision
San Francisco CA

Hi Mel,

As you can see from several of the replies here, the Epson Perfection flatbed scanners are a perennial favorite at a lot of museums. They're able to scan documents, photographic prints, transparencies of varying sizes, 35mm negatives, and slides. The compromise for this versatility is that it's all manual feed, no auto-feeds of any sort. You'll see some online review complaints about the flimsy plastic frames for the different sizes of media (and they're right, the things are flimsy), but reasonably gentle handling keeps them in good shape. And depending on the dpi you wish to scan at, it can take a while. But the Epsons we have here are workhorses and get the job done at good quality. I believe A4 is the max size the Perfection line of scanners comes in, but that's enough for quite a range of items. I've done the scanning by parts/stitching together in Photoshop that you mentioned. It works but is quite time-consuming--if you foresee scanning large numbers of larger-format items, then I'd suggest investing in a model that's big enough to handle them. The price range for the Perfections is usually around $650-$850, depending on how recent a model you get and the supplier.

Best of luck with your projects!

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Jennifer Day
Registrar
Indian Arts Research Center - School of American Research
Santa Fe NM
day@sarsf.org

Our small historical society has four Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanners that have proven to be not only sturdy, but low cost and more than adequate for the job of digitizing both documents and photos.  We are well on our way to total digitization, offering community service hours credit to students before they graduate high school, for working in our archives a few hours each week scanning photos.  We have developed a workbook as reference for volunteers and produce scanned photos in a number of resolutions. This Epson will scan up to 1200 dpi, which is almost never needed.  It also comes with a negative scanner, you can tuck it under your arm and safely move it.  I think you will find that your main concern will be having enough secure storage capacity for your digital files.

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[Cyndi] [Upthegrove]
[Director]
[Highline Historical Society]