With an external partner, we analysed the contents of an archive, which, apart from the usual analogue publications and documents, contained a comprehensive collection of various data storage media from the 1980s and 1990s. Approximately 700 data carriers (floppy disks, Iomega Zip, Iomega Jaz, SyQuest, external hard drives) document the digital creations of the musician, who started to use specialised software to compose and synthesise music early on in the emerging digitisation period. Quite a few of these data carriers could only be used with specialised synthesisers, or were, unfortunately, no longer readable because of their age. As part of the analysis and preparation of the data for long-term archiving, we checked the data consistency, the readability of the media in and with various systems, the efficient evaluation and inventory of the data as the basis for the scientific appraisal, as well as the possibilities of file format migration and the preparation of the data for reuse with authenticity and integrity.

(bma)

For the SNSF research project Printed Markets. The Basel Avisblatt 1729-1845 of Prof. Burghartz, we digitised the first Basel newspaper, the Avis-Blatt, in full with its 116 volumes and 50 000 pages, taking into consideration its special requirements.  
A year before the actual project started, we developed a prototype in collaboration with the professorship and the Research Navigator, in which the digital methods were tested. Part of the prototype was the digitising of a sample and the OCR-processing of the Gothic script for the creation of training data. It turned out that for these old “Fraktur” (Gothic) scripts, we achieved far better full-text results (98%) when we did the additional work of editing in Transkribus.

If digital facsimiles take on the status of research data, this has an influence on the requirements for the quality of the digitisation. In contrast to the usual item-specific digitisation, which reproduces inconsistencies in the original, the aim of this project was to achieve a complete transmission of all the information. To achieve this, we had to obtain additional copies of the newspaper from other archives and undertake a multi-stage check for quality and completeness. This quality level was achieved through consistent cooperation.  Project and library staff worked with the Goobi workflow software, whereby the quality assurance could be integrated and processed efficiently. For the seamless processing of the data, the University Library transmitted the volumes directly to the Transkribus platform. This reduced waiting times.

(elk)