Digital Heritage: Applying Digital Imaging to Cultural Heritage

The digital imaging of cultural and heritage objects has become commonplace as memory institutions create digital surrogates and representation of their holdings, generally to increase public access by providing the resulting images online, but also to provide accurate and detailed records, and to facilitate detailed analysis of objects, documents, buildings, and artefacts. Commercially available digital imaging technologies have developed rapidly in the last ten years, becoming more popular nowadays than their analogue counterparts, and increasing expectations from the general public about the range and quality of digital image material which should be made available by heritage institutions. However, there are many issues raised in creating and disseminating digital image representations of cultural and heritage institutional holdings, and there are still many tools, techniques, and methodologies which need research, explanation and discussion for those wishing to understand and apply imaging technologies within the heritage industry. The library, archive, museum and information sectors have produced many good texts regarding why digitisation is becoming increasingly popular, and how best to undertake a digitisation project, generally from a managerial perspective (Kenney These texts are essential reading for those considering establishing a digitisation project within an institutional setting. Technology, however, continues to develop, presenting novel techniques for imaging as the range of objects being digitised and