Empoli Public Library "Renato Fucini"

Catalogue of the Sixteenth Century Editions

Index of CD

 

THE RESTITUTION OF THE DIGITAL IMAGES

 

The sixteenth century works described in this catalogue were subjected to digital restitution in their most important parts for identifying the edition and reconstructing the history of the example (title page, printers stamp, ex-libris inscriptions and hand-written notes). The operation was carried out by library staff using an ordinary desktop scanner and the programme Adobe Photoshop. The scannings were made in the True color mode to the standard of 300 dpi, without retouching the photo but making use of filters and adjustments that have improved their visual quality without altering the original tones. All the title page images are presented twice on the CD ROM: once, in a reduced format, next to the catalogue list to see it as a whole, and then, on a separate page and in a bigger format, to appreciate to the full the details of the example. In this last case, it was decided to reproduce all the images with a standard width of 5cm. Depending on the length of the image, it may be necessary to use the lateral scroll bar of the browser to get a complete picture. The images of stamps, ex-libris inscriptions and hand-written notes are shown only once. Original images with a dimension of less than 5cm are normally presented in their natural size. The choice to reproduce the title page images with a fixed width, which does not give an idea of the real dimensions of the object, was determined by the necessity to give a homogenous product for consultation, allowing for the complete display of the editions in large format and, at the same time, making the most of the many details of small format editions which constitute the majority of the Sixteenth Century collection of the library of Empoli. The indication of the format in the catalogue list allows for the retrieval of the information about the original dimensions of the digitised object. The use of a normal desktop scanner, instead of a planetary sophisticated system, which no library in Tuscany has available, conditioned significantly the job of digitalisation. To protect the examples from mechanical damage due to compression operations, in the search for a better scan, a minimum quality level was used, which allowed the identification of the edition to which the example can be traced back, without spending time searching for the best possible reproductions of these little jewels, whose physical integrity was the most important factor. Numerous title pages show the characteristic "ombra" (shadow) corresponding to the curvature which the text assumes naturally, when opening the volumes with strong bindings. No librarian would dare subject them to tension, in order to improve the results of the digital image. The blanks in the original documents were highlighted by the interposition of black paper, allowing for clear distinction from the restoration work made in white and off-white. In the case of title pages badly damaged on the cutting edges, the digitised image was cut in a way to highlight the consistency of the blanks. In the case of title pages in good condition, the image was cut to life size. Due to the fact that the scanner available to the library was able to reproduce images up to A4 format, title pages, stamps, and other notes about ownership of the copy in foglio were photographed by library staff, and then the photographs were digitised. In cases where a double operation (photographing and scanning) altered the colours of the original copy significantly, the digital restitution was made in black and white. The 1214 images in this CD ROM are divided thus: 838 images of title pages

203 images of printers' stamps

143 images of ex-libris inscriptions

40 images of hand-written notes

All the images have been saved in .jpg format.

Altogether, the disc space occupied by the images is 289 Mb, an average of 3.8 Kb per image.