Digitizing the Collection

          The sheet music in the Charles Templeton Collection was scanned on a Microtek 9600 XL flatbed scanner connected to a workstation running Windows 2000 and Adobe Photoshop software. These master/archival images were created at 400 dpi in 24-bit RGB color and saved as TIFF images. Testing indicated that the 400 dpi color scans provided excellent resolution on both computer monitors and laser-quality prints.

          After each master/archival image was placed through a quality control procedure, the files were converted into Portable Document Format (PDF) files using Adobe Acrobat Exchange. The booklets were produced with the cover in color, but the subsequent pages were changed to grayscale 8-bit images to reduce the file size. The completed PDF booklets average 5 pages and are approximately 2.2 MB each.

          In addition to creating a PDF file for viewing, in September 2002, the files were also converted to DjVu documents for faster downloading and easier viewing. For more information on DjVu documents, which was created by LizardTech Software, see http://www.lizardtech.com.

According to LizardTech's web site:

          For color pages at 300 dpi containing text and pictures, DjVu files are between 10 and 30 times smaller than GIF or JPEG with similar quality levels, and between 500 and 1000 times smaller than TIF. Additionally, DjVu was specifically engineered for access speed, so not only are files considerably smaller, they can be viewed much more quickly over any network, including narrowband and wireless.

          PDF is primarily designed for documents that require a high degree of manipulation and quality printing, while DjVu is designed for documents that require broad distribution. LizardTech's newer technology was engineered to meet the needs of companies and individuals that distribute large quantities of documents, or complex content, to a broad, geographically diverse audience.

          In addition to DjVu's size advantage, ranging from 5 to 50 times smaller than corresponding PDFs based on content, the user experience is also considerably enhanced through rapid loading, viewing, and easy interaction with the DjVu document.

          The DjVu format does require the user to load a plug-in to view the files. The viewer can be downloaded at http://www.lizardtech.com/download/.

          Currently, the standard for storing the master/archival images is CD-R media; therefore, the master/archival images will be stored on “Gold” CD-R media.