Bigwood.biz:  Research  Photography
 

Microfilms -

The National Archives holds thousands of rolls of microfilms which may be photographed or photocopied.  Photographing involves taking pictures of the microfilm on a monitor.  Sometimes this produces better results than photocopying, sometimes not.  The National Archives is in the process of installing digital microfilm copiers, which will mean that in future digitized documents will be transferred to a USB flash drive or similar device.  This will provide the best quality.  The machines are presently wrapped with plastic awaiting installation and we expect that they will be up and ready within six months (October, 2008).

Below are the products available using photocopying or photography.

1)  Simple photocopies can be made and mailed or converted to searchable PDFs and emailed to the clients. If there are many documents the following options may make more sense.

2)  Simple Website containing responsive documents.  Each image on each page of the website is downloadable from the website to your computer as a JPG that can be printed out on any size paper on any printer. No renaming of documents - images are labeled with the name given by the camera. This website is kept active for at least two weeks.  This work usually takes me a little more than an hour to complete with less than 200 individual images.

3)  Simple Website plus Searchable Unadjusted PDF.  This is a Simple Website (above) plus the images are converted to many JPGs and a single PDF which is "text recognized" and then sent to the client via e-mail or downloaded from the website or sent via mail as a CD or DVD.  This work usually takes me two hours.

4) Labeled and Adjusted Website.  Each document is labeled and appears in chronological order followed by a short descriptor and images are color-corrected and sharpened.  This work usually takes me under three hours.

5)  Labeled and Adjusted Website plus Searchable adjusted PDF.  This work usually takes me under three hours.

Final Product as a CD or DVD. Clients usually request that I burn a CD or DVD of the the digitized documents as a website; medium-sized JPGs for printing; small-sized JPGs; and often PDF files.  I usually charge a little extra for burning the original RAW files because these can require more than one DVD and take some time to burn.

Rates:

I charge $290.00 per seven-hour day.  If the work requires additional time at home, this will have to be negotiated.  All copying media, such as photocopy paper, CDs, DVDs and Mini-DVs are paid for by the client.



Jeremy Bigwood, 3200 16th St. NW #806, Washington, D.C. 20010 T/F: (202) 319-9150; Cell: (202) 361-5000 
bigwood@rcn.com