About the Project
Project Author
Elizabeth Palomino earned her B.A. in Studio Art with a minor in Public History from Northwest Missouri State University in 2016 and she is working toward her M.A. in Museum Studies at the University of Kansas. From September 2019 - June 2022, she was the Digital Imaging Assistant at KU libraries, where she photographed special collections. Throughout her career, Elizabeth has built exhibitions and helped with art installations. Exhibit design is vital to her role as a museum professional because it is a form of outreach and information exchange.
Digitization
In 2019, I was hired as a Digital Imaging Assistant for the University of Kansas Libraries. I worked at Watson Library part of the time and the rest was spent photographing special collections at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library (KSRL). I often photographed collections with the Digitization Coordinator, Sarah Chapman. It was helpful to have a second pair of hands when handling bulky or fragile materials. After image capture, the photographs were processed as a batch with few edits, usually image rotation, straightening, and white balance. Tasks were split so that one person could focus on capture while the other person managed and edited files on the computer. The act of photographing a collection in a library, museum, or archive is referred to as digitization. The process of digitizing includes adding descriptors such as date, location, object number, and technical information about the photo. These details identify an image and are known as metadata.
The proposal to digitize the medieval manuscript collection was initially presented to the Digital Initiatives department in February 2020. By March, the project was halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic and during the Spring 2022 semester, the project was re-introduced. Digitizing this collection is a long term goal that presents many challenges from an imaging mindset. Despite the age of the material, the pages tend to be sturdy since many are made from animal skins. However, it can be difficult to photograph a bound manuscript, especially if the binding is stiff and the pages have small borders or surface decoration. Each manuscript presents a unique challenge to the photographer.
Medieval Manuscripts
The collection of medieval manuscripts at KSRL largely represents common book production. Few of the manuscripts are illuminated or adorned; few have original bindings; many are written in standard fifteenth-century cursive. There are a handful of manuscripts written before 1000 CE with cuneiform tablets, from c. 2000 BCE; an Egyptian funerary scroll; papyrus fragments from the third and fourth centuries CE; and several undated leaves. The collection builds in the early eleventh century and expands with each century. KSRL has 123 bound manuscripts, with 350 texts from 1000 -1500 BCE. There are 83 single leaves, with 41 uncataloged leaves used for studying script samples. Topics cover Christian liturgy and religion, philosophy, rhetoric, classical texts and glossaries (etc.) most are popular texts.[1] There are neighboring collections in Missouri at Conception Abbey, the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Columbia, and St. Louis. The midwest also has noteworthy holdings at the University of Iowa and the University of Chicago.
What is RTI?
Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) is a series of object photos (around 40-60) shot from a stationary camera. In each image, light is cast from a measured angle and reflected on to a black sphere. RTI is a form of computational photography meaning that it uses computer generated calculations to create a file from an image data set. Once the data is collected and rendered the image can be dynamically relit from the captured light points. RTI is useful to researchers because the angles of raking light reveal details that are invisible with traditional digitization. There are two types of RTI, dome RTI and highlight RTI. The highlight method uses a handheld flash gun and is a low cost alternative to dome RTI, which relies on a calibrated dome with integrated light points. Domes are often large, their size must be relative to the size of the object, and fragile objects are difficult to place under the dome.[2]
Who Developed RTI?
In 2001, Tom Malzbender and Dan Gelb developed Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) and Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM) at Hewlett-Packard (HP) Laboratories. RTI was introduced to the cultural heritage sector and it was embraced by the San Francisco non-profit organization, Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) as a digitization format. CHI was founded by Mark Mudge and Carla Schroer in 2002, with Marlin Lum as the Imaging Director. CHI has a small board of five with Tom Malzbender serving as one of the members. Since the beginning, Malzbender has been integral as an advisor and co-author for the organization.[3]
To build and view RTI files it is necessary to download the RTIBuilder and the RTIViewer. Both programs are available for download on the CHI website, they are free and open-source.[4] The RTI data set is collected and rendered in RTIBuilder as either a polynomial texture map (.ptm) file or a .hsh file. In Fall 2006, Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) and researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) were awarded a National Leadership Grant (Award Number LG-25-06-0107-06) from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The project was completed in 2010, and included enhancements to the RTIBuilder and RTIViewer.[5] RTIViewer was developed by Visual Computing Laboratory of ISTI-CNR[6] with Cultural Heritage Imaging, the University of Southern California, and Hewlett-Packard Labs. Gianpaolo Palma from Visual Computing Laboratory developed Web RTI Viewer which is a HTML5-WebGL[7] viewer for ptm and hsh files.
RTI Proposal
In Spring 2022, Sarah offered to teach me RTI as an advanced method of digitization. Sarah is professionally trained in RTI and she has used this technique to capture surface details of archeological artifacts. The idea for an RTI project grew from other proposals that I shared with Sarah at the start of my Museum Studies internship. I was interested in building a digital exhibit. Sarah suggested a RTI project with an exhibit aspect. The ideal candidate for the project was the medieval manuscript collection at KSRL. Toward the end of March, Sarah and I held a meeting with Angela Andres, Elspeth Healey, and Kivilcim Yavuz from KSRL to talk about the benefits of creating a RTI data set. Sarah and I decided that photographing fragments would reduce the amount of data and prevent the challenges of working with a bound manuscript. Kivilcim selected a box of candidates and from there, we chose five individual fragments with writing on the front and back (recto, verso) of the leaf. As a bonus, we photographed the front and back cover of MS C189, a manuscript bound with recycled fragments.
Project Goals:
- To inform students of resources at KU, including the library system and the Institute of Digital Research in Humanities (IDRH).
- To increase awareness of the medieval manuscript collection at KSRL
- To provide quality imaging for researchers
- To gain institutional support for RTI as a form of digitization
[1] “Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts” Kenneth Spencer Research Library. https://spencer.lib.ku.edu/collections/special-collections/ancient-medieval-manuscripts
[2] “Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI)” Cultural Heritage Imaging. https://culturalheritageimaging.org/Technologies/RTI/
[3] “The CHI Team” Cultural Heritage Imaging. https://culturalheritageimaging.org/About_Us/CHI_Team/
[4] “Downloads” Cultural Heritage Imaging. https://culturalheritageimaging.org/What_We_Offer/Downloads/
[5] “Developing Advanced Technologies for the Imaging of Cultural Heritage Objects”
Ibid. https://culturalheritageimaging.org/What_We_Do/Projects/imls_2006/index.html
Ibid. https://culturalheritageimaging.org/What_We_Do/Projects/imls_2006/index.html
[6] Institute of Information Science and Technologies "Alessandro Faedo" (ISTI) Pisa, Italy. Consiglio Nazionale della Ricerche (CNR) Rome, Italy.
[7] HTML5 and WebGL consists of code that is written in JavaScript and executed on a computer's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). WebGL enables 2D and 3D rendering without the use of plug-ins.