Benefits:
This course enables the attendee to:

• Expand your digitization capabilities through the integration of spectral imaging and simple image processing techniques to capture a plethora of information from collection items. This includes learning techniques that range from small-scale basic capture to advanced all-in-one systems to meet the needs and budget of your institution—you can do a lot with even just a little.
• Gain skills to focus on best practice, standardized procedures, and effective digital spectral project planning.
• Learn of the multitude of cultural heritage content information and knowledge that can be accessed using multispectral imaging.
• Understand and assess illumination modalities (reflected, side-lighting, transmitted) to best meet the needs of specific collection materials and research questions.
• Integrate the priorities of scholars, curators, and researchers in digital projects.
• Learn challenges and tools for managing large imaging datasets and metadata.

Course Description:
Digital studies of cultural heritage collection materials are moving beyond simple RGB image capture to include multispectral and multi-modal imaging integration. These capture capabilities expand photographic techniques to add new layers of information, and this course discusses ways to integrate photographic and imaging skills. These non-invasive imaging techniques provide cultural heritage professionals and researchers with a tool that can reveal hidden content and enable a deeper understanding of collections. The incorporation of a multispectral imaging workflow allows recovery of erased or obscured writing, exposure of important provenance features such as watermarks, the identification of inks and colorants, and provides a means for in-depth analysis of creation techniques and material characteristics. These features are important for scholarly research, authentication, and the preservation and care of collections. This course examines the types of information that can be realized at different levels of imaging, from simple RGB channel separation to intermediate and advanced spectral capture. The session discusses different types of setups that accommodate different budgets, as well as standardized workflow integration and practical image processing techniques for all skill levels.

Intended Audience:
Professionals who work with collections in libraries, archives, museums, and other heritage institutions who are interested in expanding the scope of information they can capture from their materials. It is intended for individuals both new to and already familiar with spectral image capture. This includes digital specialists, photographers, conservators, archivists, curators, librarians, and heritage researchers and scholars.

Fenella France, chief of the Preservation Research and Testing Division, develops non-destructive imaging techniques for collections. Her focus is spectral imaging and processing techniques to increase links between scientific and scholarly data. She received her PhD from Otago University, New Zealand, and has worked internationally on many heritage projects. She serves on a range of professional committees, collaborating with colleagues from academic, cultural, forensic, and federal institutions. She is currently on the Advisory Boards for CHANGE–Cultural Heritage Analysis for New Generations, UCL Cultural Heritage Data Management, and CLIR.

Meghan Wilson is a preservation science specialist in the Preservation Research and Testing Division at the Library of Congress with a degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has worked extensively on spectral imaging programs around the world and specializes in operation, training, quality control, and data management of this imaging technology.