The files mounted in the present directory of this ftp site illustrate
progressive stages of experimentation in the capture of images for the
Electronic Beowulf project.  They accompany Professor Kevin Kiernan's
paper, `Digital Preservation, Restoration and Dissemination of
Medieval Manuscripts', published in the Association of research
Libraries symposium, `Scholarly Publishing on the Electronic Networks:
Gateways, Gatekeepers, and Roles in the Information Omniverse'.
Illustrated copies of this paper are available via Mosaic:  for
further details see the file `beowulf.txt'.

All the images in this directory except `flat.tif' and `welcome.tif'
were taken with the Kontron ProgRes 3102 camera (marketed by Roche in
the United States), using either WinCam or Roche Image Manager
software.  The camera was used with progressively more powerful PC
equipment, starting with a 33 MHz 386 PC with 32 MB of RAM and ending
with a 66 MHz PC with a Pentium 586 chip and 98 MB of RAM.

The jpegs were made at a variety of levels of compression with
different software from the original tiff files which are 21 MB each.

All the images of the Beowulf manuscript are made directly from the
original manuscript.

The image `179r.jpg' was made under Kevin Kiernan's supervision at an
initial demonstration of the Kontron camera at the Library in June.
The image was transmitted by telephone line to Professor Kiernan's
colleague Charles Fischer in Kentucky, and the file stored there.
Subsequently it was sent back to London via the internet.  The jpeg
was subsequently made by Kevin Kiernan and Andrew Prescott with David
Seaman during demonstrations at the University of Virginia.  For
comparison a flat-bed scan of part of the high-quality colour
facsimile of this folio in Kevin Kiernan's book `Beowulf and the
Beowulf Manuscript' is included in this directory as `flat.tif'.

Further tests of the camera were arranged at the Library in October
1993.  The images `192v.jpg' and `192vsec.jpg' were taken during these
tests.  At this time, the lighting was still experimental and the
colour calibration require fine-tuning, so the picture may appear
rather dark.  This large image file was transmitted by ftp to Kentucky
with the assistance of Dave Hart of the FACTS Center, University of
Kentucky, and Tim Hadlow of the British Library.

Scanning of the manuscript began in January 1994.  `132r.jpg' shows an
overall view of the first folio of the manuscript with correct colour
calibration and lighting.  On a suitably adjusted monitor with a
high-resolution video card, the Kodak colour strip and grey scales can
be displayed accurately.  The two images `edge1.tif' and `edge2.tif'
show the use of fibre optic backlighting to reveal text concealed by
the paper mounts which protected the edges of the damaged manuscript.
`edge1' is the original shot, and `edge2' the image after processing
by Kevin Kiernan.

`Watch.tif' and `bard.tif' are test shots of three-dimensional objects
ade to ilustrate the camera's potential.  `Minibard.tif' uses scaling
through a Windows clipboard to try and reduce the size of the file to
faciltate display on a PC with a small amount of RAM (say 8MB).

We would be pleased to hear of your experiences and impressions in
trying to use these images.

Andrew Prescott andrew.prescott@bl.uk