The refinement of non-invasive imaging provides new layers of scholarly and preservation data by capturing images of heritage materials in distinct wavebands of the visible and non-visible spectrum. Advancing these capabilities has allowed new interpretations of such important historical documents as those of the U.S. founding fathers documents. Image processing of large datasets generate a wealth of information, and require careful consideration of the metadata and processing to ensure no that no false imaging artifacts are produced. These imaging technologies have been expanded to gather a range of preservation information including the non-invasive characterization of colorants, and comparative ink analysis. A further advantage is the ability to undertake predictive assessment of the impact of environment and treatments. Baseline imaging allows for more data-driven decisions to be made for exhibition, and conservation treatments for stabilization.

On July 12, 1973 a devastating fire at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis destroyed approximately 16-18 million Army and Air Force Official Military Personnel Files (OMPFs) from the early and mid-twentieth century – 80% of the total military personnel records of this time period. During the salvage efforts following the fire approximately 6.5 million records were recovered. OMPFs are commonly requested by government agencies and individual citizens for the purpose of obtaining veterans' benefits and researching personal or family histories. In 2015 a multiple spectrum imaging workflow was put in place to digitize the most heavily damaged records as they are requested – records at a condition level that formerly prevented their being accessed by requestors. Digital versions are provided in lieu of originals for these requests. To counter information loss in charred record pages, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) utilizes infrared imaging as part of the process. This paper describes the production imaging project now underway, with particular attention paid to the unique requirements of photographing brittle and charred originals. The author shares information about the overall strategy, methods to prepare records for imaging and a photographic technique to maximize content recovery.

The Digital Humanities Lab is a research institute of the faculty of Humanities of the University of Basel. The research profile of the dhLab is centered around computer science, digital imaging, digital photography and the accessibility of digital objects in humanities research. The project Digital Materiality examines how new methods to describe the reflection of light on surfaces can be applied to art historical research. In the main focus are mosaics and early prints. Both types of artwork have a strong interaction with light. Unfortunately standard photographic approaches are not able to capture the dynamic component of the light-surface interdependence. The technical part of the project focuses on improving RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) techniques. By modifying the model accordingly to the requirements of art historical research, the digital reproduction shall be able to transport the relevant attributes of the original in the digital domain. The improvements take into account more sophisticated but still robust reflection models that allow the realistic visualization of diffuse and specular surfaces. The visualization is implemented in WebGL, to allow the integration of RTI in an web-based environment, especially Virtual Research Environments, VREs

An important aspect in paper conservation is identification of the source of a paper used for a work of art. Identifying threedimensional characteristics such as laid lines, chain lines, and watermarks made in the manufacturing process of papers can aid in this process. Reflectance Transform Imaging (RTI) has become a point of interest[1], as it is particularly useful when the primary support is lined with secondary or even tertiary supports of canvas, boards, or other papers with different textures that would obstruct the use of transmitted light or X-ray imaging. Working with the surface normal and depth map generated from a 3D model based on the RTI data, we use frequency separation methods and Fast Fourier Transforms to isolate specific threedimensional features from the images.

TF*IDF (term frequency times inverse document frequency) is a common metric used to automatically discover keywords in documents for use in classification and other text processing applications. We are interested in determining whether these measures can help in determining the most relevant sentences for summarization and classification purposes. However, there are many ways to define TF*IDF, and to date no attempt to relatively—and systematically—gauge the value of these different forms has been performed. We investigate a comprehensive family of 112 TF*IDF measures (corresponding to an a priori estimate of 20 degrees of freedom among these measures) applied to 3000 CNN articles belonging in 12 classes such as Business, Sport, and World. The assumption is that at least some sets of these measures must be effective for document summarization and classification. The goal is to identify the summaries provided by TF*IDF measures that best match human generated summaries as well as find effective TF*IDF definitions for classification purposes.

Subject of this paper is the architecture of the prototype implementation developed in the E-ARK project. It is specifically designed to support scalable and efficient data transformation, information extraction from archival information packages, and full-text search in the repository. As a continuation of previous work related to the use of Hadoop to process large data volumes, it presents a combined approach of using a distributed task queue for parallel processing together with Hadoop and HBase to allow computing intensive and long-running tasks being applied during ingest as well as the full-text indexing of very large document collections.

Defense Media Activity (DMA) is the Department of Defense's (DoD) direct line of communication for news and information to U.S. forces worldwide. The agency informs DoD audiences, entertains DoD audience overseas, trains Public Affairs and Visual Information professionals, and manages the DoD's visual information. Defense Visual Information (DVI) manages DoD visual information in support of U.S. military activities and operations and conducts visual information planning, policy, procedures, guidance, management, and standards. Defense Imagery Management Operations Center (DIMOC) provides DoD enterprise-level visual information services including operational support, digitization, storage, access, records management of the Department of Defense's visual content, and accessions to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. DVI has a need, like all archives, for digital storage. Hence our study of the storage industry and the solutions they develop, which vary significantly. The need for more storage conflicts with our constant budget pressure, necessitating the right balance of performance versus cost. Solutions must be reliable and fast enough to support the mission while not breaking the bank. Research into the various solutions available began in 2006 when a new effort was started by DVI to fix the digital asset management problem. This paper will discuss the history of storage systems used by DVI, why the first system could not be used, research with various vendors and the requirements presented to the vendors. The paper will also discuss the selection and use of very high capacity storage designed to hold video master files. The paper will also explain how we moved the storage system in 2011 to the new agency. The paper continues by discussing the growth of the storage system in DVI, moving from vendor to vendor. The paper concludes with a discussion about current cloud storage options and what that means for DVI.

This report focuses specifically on practices within the Wellcome Library and Archives in London, United Kingdom, and what the Library is doing to promote and maintain its hybrid collections, both analog and digital. To remain a thriving and relevant information agency in a time when the value of brick-andmortar institutions are constantly questioned, the Wellcome Library has worked to develop methods worth sharing to other institutions who are striving to preserve cultural and artistic heritage around the world. In light of its creativity and innovation, the Wellcome Library warrants further discussion, especially in countries outside the UK.

In order to fulfill digital preservation goals, many institutions use high-end scanners for in-house digitization of historical print and oversize materials. However, high-end scanners' prices do not fit in many small institutions' budget. As digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera technologies advance and camera prices drop quickly, a budget photography studio can help to achieve institutions' preservation goals. This paper compares images delivered by a high-end overhead scanner and a consumer level DSLR camera, discusses pros and cons of using each method, demonstrates how to set up a cost efficient shooting studio, and presents a budget estimate for a studio.

Defense Media Activity (DMA) is the Department of Defense's (DoD) direct line of communication for news and information to U.S. forces worldwide. The agency informs DoD audiences, entertains DoD audience overseas, trains Public Affairs and Visual Information professionals, and manages the DoD's visual information. This paper presents an overview of how the Defense Imagery Management Operations Center (DIMOC) will improve its reputation within the defense community and increase brand awareness throughout the U.S. Department of Defense. DIMOC's mission is to integrate imagery capabilities while centrally managing and archiving current and historical visual information media from throughout the DoD. DIMOC's higher headquarters, Defense Media Activity (DMA), established a balanced scorecard methodology in December 2014 for implementing a strategic planning and management system in support of DMA's strategic management framework. As a result, DIMOC reviewed internal practices and determined there was room for improvement in reputation management. Strategic objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives were developed to make DIMOC the most sought after resource in the VI community.