Orphaned Objects

  What’s this, a suspicious package? No, but it is DA BOMB 😊   Shiny. Shiny shiny shiny. It’s a shiny new slides/negatives scanner – the Plustek OpticFilm8200i . Ta-daa! Having previously identified the scale of the task at hand to digitise my family's photograph collection, we move onto how best to scan the images and what best to scan them with... I did consider getting the Epson V600 which I’ve used professionally before and has certain advantages, such as scanning multiple transparencies simultaneously and being a generally more versatile flatbed scanner than dedicated photo scanners. However, after much research and stressing over a budget, I picked the Plustek as the best compromise between quality and affordability (even then it was at the VERY UPPER end of affordability, but hey – it’s Christmas…) There’s several flavours of the Plustek but in the end I chose the version which comes bundled with the Silverfast 8.8 AI scanning software for the extra dust removal...

Three posts in with this new blog it’s probably time for an introduction to the braincells behind the keyboard of this little adventurous adventure. So… Started the way I meant to go on. Cute. And eating. WHO AM I? I’m David, which is my story and I’m sticking to it. On a good day I’m an adult human male and, after studying History and Archaeology at the University of York, have been pursuing a career in the museums sector for a shade over ten years. Luckily working in museums has often felt like being paid to pursue my own hobbies and has involved many sublime/surreal experiences – just a few being; Playing Santa's Elf (several times, several museums) Ploughing with horses Teaching Girl Guides how to cook Carrot Cookies Feeling like Willy Wonka giving tours of a store holding one million objects and showing off a world of pure... collection storage Tap-dancing in First World War centenary concerts Holding the goat down to take his eyedrops WHAT DO I DO?         ...

Sometimes I wonder if I take the whole domestic curator thing to a silly degree. That's right, the loft now sports an environment monitor... Shiny. Not sure if it's environmentally friendly but it's definitely environmentally monitory. I've been a bit concerned for a while about the climate in the loft which, like most attics, tends to get very warm in summer and very cold in winter and, crucially, holds some family archive material and other assorted stuff we don't want to get ruined. Just to complicate matters, different materials prefer different climates - organic artefacts for example like a certain amount of moisture in the air to prevent drying out/cracking, whereas metal stored in the same conditions might have an increased tendency to rust. Too much moisture promotes mould, too little can make paper objects brittle. Fun.  *N.B. I am not an expert here! I've worked with collections for a decade but my knowledge of museum climates and object conservation ...

I'm going to digitise my family's entire slide collection. Why? I love collections work!  'Playing with old stuff' is why I started working in museums and it's still pretty much my favourite museum thing, except for the one job where we had Cheeky Chocolate Finger Thursday. My current job is in project management, which is great (I swear rollercoasters ain't a patch on the rush of hearing one of your funding bids has been successful. No, honestly), but recently I've been having major pangs to dive back into a collection. Trouble is, this being 2020, access to my museum's store has been off-limits for most of the year. What to do? Ah-ha! Sorting out my parents' loft in the run-up to Christmas I came across the family photographs - of which there are, well, a few. Thousand. These are the transparencies. The negatives are elsewhere. And equally plentiful. I've managed digitising projects in past museums and it seemed like a sensible idea to apply th...