Credits

Special Thanks

Special thanks to the Canadian Pacific Railway for their generous financial support.

Library Team

Kate Russell, Supervising Librarian, Special Collections Department
Wendy Godley, Librarian, Special Collections Department
Andrew Martin, Librarian, Special Collections Department
Michele Greig, Library Technician II, Newspapers & Magazines Department
Kim McCarthy, Library Technician II, Special Collections Department
John Alexander, Library Technician, VPL
Melina Bowden, Information Assistant, VPL
Jon Whipple MGDC, Graphics Technician- Web, Virtual Library

Technical Information

Scanning

Hardware

Seanix P3 600, 512MB RAM, 13 GB HD, CD-RW, Windows '98
ViewSonic G810 22 inch CRT
Microtek ScanMaker III
Wacom Graphics Tablet

Software

Scanwizard Image Acquisition Software
Adobe Photoshop 5.5
Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4

Text Database and Web

InMagic DB\Textworks 6.01, Web Publisher 4.03
FireFox 1.0.2
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0.2
Macromedia Homesite 5

The Archiving and Scanning Process

Before image scanning and data entry into the electronic database could begin, a system was created to inventory all manifestations of each image in the Canadian Pacific Railway Photograph Collection. A logbook was created (listing negatives: glass plate, film base, copy and source, and display prints: copy and source) from which the data was interpreted and then entered into the InMagic database. This data was merged with all additional information from the Special Collections Department photograph accession records and historic photograph index shelflist, thereby enhancing the descriptive information for every image. The entire inventorying process was highly labour intensive, in part because of the need to gather and organize information found in handwritten and index card format, in preparation for transferring it to electronic form.

After the text was entered, the source images were removed from the Special Collections historical photographs vault and were checked against the accompanying text. Once this step was completed, scanning of the photographs commenced, with each image scanned in greyscale to a minimum of 300dpi. The scans were saved as TIFFs and burned to CD-ROM for archival storage. The TIFFs were then used as the source for the creation of JPEGs in two sizes at 72dpi suitable for displaying on the website.

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Photograph (top):VPL #77464; C.P.R. Freight office interior, Vancouver, B.C., 1961.