Funded Projects Query Form
43 matches

A Tier II project to develop two specialized open-source software tools, Virtual Bench Research Platform and Virtual Bench Compute, for improving the preservation and material study of digitized film.

Motion picture film is more than an image. While the history of cinema provides ample evidence that the film industry from its beginnings strove to promote the illusion of an immaterial presence illuminating a screen in a darkened theater, the reality of film’s physical presence rolled through projectors in booths, weighed down shipping containers as it was shuttled from one theater to another, and fell to the cutting room floor during editing. The residue of a century of filmmaking (theatrical and non-theatrical, professional and amateur, documentary and fiction, news and nonsense) now resides in film archives once or twice removed from the industries and communities that produced the content. How this large collective archive will live on to be studied by scholars of the future remains a question without a satisfactory answer. The University of South Carolina seeks a $349,106 award to fund a two-year project that will push the boundaries of possibility for scholarly access to motion picture film elements surviving in film archives. We propose a two-pronged project that will demonstrate the inherent value of digitizing the entirety of a film element, known as a full overscan, to create a digital surrogate of the material motion picture film object.

The expansion of Open ONI, a collection of open-source, collaboratively developed newspaper-hosting software, that will make digitally accessible many kinds of serial publications, such as periodicals, born-digital news, and serials published after 1963.

The changing preservation and maintenance landscape for digital newspapers necessitates an innovative, customizable, and lightweight technical solution to support local newspaper digitization and preservation programs. The University of Oregon Libraries, in partnership with the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, seeks funding to expand on the impact of the National Digital Newspaper Program by enhancing the existing software for better distribution and easier adoption by managers and curators of digital and born-digital newspapers. This project addresses the gaps in the currently-available systems by creating an open-source alternative to vendor systems or other shared digital collections repositories, and to continue expanding the Open ONI partnership and initiative to better serve institutions that want an easily-deployable and maintainable website for their digital newspaper collections.

The development of image-based, quantitative protocols for Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM) using hardware and deep learning algorithms to generate image data for pigment identification and diagnosis of patterns of deterioration.

The project proposed here builds on this significant infrastructure and know-how within the conservation profession on PLM use. Focusing on the extensive archive of pigment dispersion slides at the Art Institute of Chicago1 and the Forbes collection at Harvard Art Museums as source materials, this proposal aims to maximize the amount of information extracted from PLM through recent advances in sensor hardware combined with computational imaging and deep learning. In short, we will be modernizing PLM by "harnessing the data revolution"to provide cutting-edge resources for conservators to make pigment identifications and to diagnose patterns of deterioration. As a core part of our dissemination, we will be making both the data collected as well as software pipelines open source for use by anyone and accessible through the Center of Scientific Studies in the Arts'' (NU-ACCESS) online presence.

The development of a research workflow and protocol based on capacity-building technical research in color studies using X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) and multi-spectral imaging (MSI) techniques to study archaeological collections at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

Color is a fundamental tool of human expression and has been for millennia. Understanding how people used color in the ancient world can tell us about their beliefs, values, and how they viewed the world around them. Color could be found everywhere: in architectural spaces, on sculpture, and in the clothing people wore. Color choices were made at every level of society, from emperors to individuals in their daily lives. Color was a commodity that traveled across the ancient Mediterranean, from western Spain to the Fayoum region of Egypt. Certain colors were so valued – and so rare – that people devised ways to create them chemically. We know much of this thanks to the scientific study of color that survives on artifacts. Technical color research provides physical evidence of the prevalence and variety of color in antiquity, and is changing the way we think about the ancient world.

The development of modern Optical Character Recognition and post-correction tools tailored for Indigenous Latin American languages through a multilingual benchmark, software package, web interface, and digitized data to be returned to the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA).

This project will unlock endangered and low-resource language data that have already been collected in the past and are stored in linguistic archives like the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA).  To do so, we will combine modern machine learning tools with linguistic expertise to develop modern Optical Character Recognition and post-correction tools, tailored to the intricacies of these language data.  The result will include a multilingual benchmark, a software package, a web interface, and digitized data that will be returned to AILLA for storage.

A three-year Tier II advanced research project to develop a diagnostic methodology for cultural heritage institutions to monitor and adjust room-level pollutant concentrations while implementing sustainable preservation strategies.

RIT’s Image Permanence Institute is applying for a three-year Tier II: Advanced Implementation Grant to integrate new methods for pollution risk assessment into best practices for implementing energy-saving strategies in mechanical systems serving collection spaces. Pollutants are pervasive, occurring in indoor and outdoor air, causing damage to nearly all forms of collection objects. The project will document, analyze, and interpret changes to pollutant concentrations when implementing energy-saving strategies, as compared to standard operation. A data collection and modeling procedure will be developed to help institutions balance their own indoor and outdoor pollutant levels with preservation quality, energy-savings optimization, and reduced carbon footprint. The proposed project’s relation to climate change, financial impact, and preservation makes it both timely and pressing, and the results will be applicable to the vast majority of collecting institutions.

The preparation of eight scripts—six historical and two modern—for inclusion in the international Unicode standard, to aid research using materials in historical scripts and to promote communication in minority language communities.

Although computer and mobile users in many parts of the world can now communicate in hundreds of languages by using their own native writing system, there are still linguistic minority groups, and users of historical writing systems, who cannot. This is because the letters and symbols of these scripts are not yet part of the international character encoding standard, known as Unicode. More than one hundred and thirty eligible scripts are not yet included in Unicode, which directly affects humanities research, the creation of the global digital repository of humankind's literary and cultural heritage and, for users of modern scripts, basic communication. This project will fund proposals for two modern and six historical scripts (or major script additions) for inclusion in the standard, and pave the way for electronic communication in (and about) scripts by scholars and other user communities.

A Tier II project to develop a low-cost spectral imaging system and accompanying software to recover obscured and illegible text in historical materials.

Most research libraries and museums hold unique or rare items on which historically significant text is no longer legible due to deterioration or erasure. Spectral imaging - the process of collecting images of objects in many wavelengths of light - has become one solution for recovering obscured and illegible text on historical materials. Unfortunately, these systems are very expensive, and require knowledge of image processing methods. Most libraries and museums cannot afford these systems, nor do they have the capacity to process the data. To mitigate this, we propose to develop a low-cost spectral imaging system with accompanying low barrier-to-entry software.

The development of capture protocols, standards, and tutorials for long-term preservation and virtual representations of aural heritage.

Aural heritage preservation documents and recreates the auditory experience of culturally important places, enabling virtual interaction through physics-based reconstructions. A form of “intangible” cultural heritage, aural heritage is captured via spatial acoustics techniques, creating digital audio data for auralizations (reconstructions for listening). This project will 1) codify a protocol for the capture, verification, and auralization of aural heritage, demonstrated in case-study application on three culturally distinct sites; 2) create extensibility pathways for the widespread adoption of this protocol, including workshops, web-based tutorials, and other freely disseminated resources that enable non-acoustical specialists to apply the method to a diversity of sites. Case study demonstrations of the method will serve as models for site constituencies, Humanities researchers, and other cultural heritage practitioners, while providing a digital archive of endangered aural heritage.

A study of the applicability of geochemical clay analyses, including portable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), for establishing the provenance of cuneiform tablets held by the Oriental Institute (OI) of the University of Chicago.

Unprovenanced clay tablets with cuneiform writing from the Near East present a legal, ethical, and scholarly challenge for cultural heritage preservation, museum collections, and scholars. The goal of this project is to prove that chemical clay analysis employing X-ray fluorescence and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy is a viable method to determine the provenance of those antique objects.

The development of procedures and tools designed for the preservation of Digital Video (DV) recordings, a highly fragile format used widely in the mid-1990s through 2000s, documenting local heritage, oral histories, arts performances and a variety of other cultural events and activities.

Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound (MIPoPS) is requesting supporting funds via a Tier II National Endowment for the Humanities Research and Development grant for a project, titled DV Rescue. [The project will] develop procedures and tools that will support migrating data from DV tapes into digital files suitable for long-term preservation. This will fill an urgent need for DV tape transfer tools that can rescue content from at-risk digital videotape formats. The DV Rescue project will entail two years of work to develop open source and freely available software, user research and testing, and create documentation to help define and perform comprehensive, automated, and easy-to-use data migration techniques. MIPoPS will collaborate with RiceCapades, a consulting and development company. They will also work with eight institutions currently collecting DV videotape to conduct research, define preservation workflows, establish standards and develop the most impactful tools f

A Tier I investigation of bibliographic data for approximately 20,000 humanities serial publications preserved on microfilm and in digital form, to determine how such information could best be combined with the Print Archives Preservation Registry (PAPR) to facilitate acquisition and preservation decisions in libraries.

The Center for Research Libraries seeks NEH Research and Development Tier I funding for the planning phase of a major effort to mine the records of historical print serials reformatted through major humanities preservation microfilming programs and digitization efforts. During the planning phase, CRL will assemble from a variety of sources a testbed of bibliographic records, holdings information, and other documentation on an estimated 20,000 journals reformatted over the last fifty years by libraries and trustworthy publishers. CRL will assess the quality and reliability of records and information related to these reformatted serials, and will determine the extent to which the acquired information can be integrated with other existing data on print serials in the Print Archives Preservation Registry (PAPR). Finally, CRL will test the applicability of that information to library decisions on preservation and maintenance of print serial collections.

The development and enhancement of open-source software tools for the collection, management, archiving, and sharing of cultural heritage imaging metadata. Data management processes associated with computational photography would be streamlined and automated through a suite of tools that would make computational photographic techniques, and the images and metadata they generate, more accessible and more sustainable for a wide audience of cultural heritage practitioners.

This work is a collaboration between Cultural Heritage Imaging and the Centre for Cultural Informatics (CCI) in Heraklion, Crete. The project will complete and disseminate a free open source pipeline of scientific imaging software tools that use data captured with off-the-shelf digital cameras and photo gear. These user-friendly tools greatly simplify metadata collection, essential to the scientific documentary imaging of “digital surrogates,” and organize these reusable materials into a standards-based Submission Information Package (SIP) for archival delivery and intake. The tools are for use by cultural heritage practitioners in museums, libraries, and historic sites, as well as by local citizen caretakers around the world. Adoption of the tools and techniques will be enhanced by software internationalization and localization into Arabic. The goal is to democratize the use of these tools to save humanity’s imperiled cultural legacy, especially in North Africa and the Middle East.

Development of an open-source tool for characterizing and monitoring the development of metal soap formation on Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. Once developed, the tool would be available to conservators, scholars, and scientists who wish to monitor changes in surface topography on oil paintings. 

This project promises to reduce the barriers between scientific research and conservation practice; as well, it will develop user-friendly, image-based tools that could be used for real-time, long-term monitoring of the dynamic evolution of paint surfaces affected by metal soaps formation. These imaging and web-based image-processing tools, once developed, could be easily adapted to investigate other surface characteristics of paintings that are critical to their preservation such as surface cracks and lacunae. The results will provide the community with actual data on the impact of environmental as well as anthropic (i.e. solvent cleaning/lining etc.) factors on the present condition and long term preservation of paintings.

The development of an interactive system that provides access to a puppet’s functionality and expression by allowing the viewer to manipulate and “play,” through game-like technology, with a puppet or other performative object held in a digital archive.

Archiving Performative Objects is a collaboration between Georgia Tech and the Center for Puppetry Arts (CPA), both in Atlanta. It asks how we can use digital media to archive an object's functionality as "object in use." Expanding from the use of 3D visualization and reproduction, the project aims to include usage of objects through digital means and interaction design.   The project will scan up to 15 puppets from the CPA's archive and develop an interactive system to provide access to the puppets' functionality and expression. Users can interact with these puppets, which are notoriously difficult to access and conserve, through either desktop or virtual reality (VR) software.  The system will be designed to fit into existent database structures and aims to prototype a technical solution as well as a research tool for digital humanities scholars and archivists. The CPA provides expertise in puppet archiving and manipulation, while Georgia Tech covers interaction design and technical implementation.

The evaluation of advanced techniques for map processing in order to streamline the cataloging of historic maps in digital libraries.

During our 12-month Tier I basic research project, we will apply automated map-processing techniques to 25 historic maps. We will compare these results with the results through two standard map cataloging methods in digital library projects. We hope to determine whether the Strabo open-source map-processing software can be used to capture the information needed to complete required fields in Qualified Dublin Core metadata records for a CONTENTdm back-end system. This is a common technical infrastructure used in many digital libraries, so our results will have broad applicability.

A research project to characterize and identify unstable 19th-century glass artifacts using simple, non-invasive testing methods. Once developed, this testing protocol would be organized into a freely available “decision tree” that will allow preservation professionals of varying backgrounds and abilities to better identify and care for unstable glass in museum, library, and archive collections.

The grant will support interdisciplinary, collaborative research for the development of simple tools organized into a "decision tree" that will allow end-users of varying backgrounds and abilities, from curators and collectors to conservators and conservation scientists, to better identify the risk posed by unstable 19th century glass in historical collections. The tree and accompanying protocols will guide users in a step-wise process through the application of simple, readily available tools for the examination of glass artifacts, starting with the use of ultraviolet (UV) light, and advancing to more sophisticated non-invasive spectroscopic and spectral imaging tools, including X-ray fluorescence (XRF), spectral imaging, and fluorescence spectroscopy.

The pilot phase and development of a free, online Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) library and tool for conservation and preservation professionals. When completed, this library would help cultural heritage institutions evaluate the environmental and human health impacts of collection management activities including conservation treatment, storage, loans, and exhibitions.

This project will lay the groundwork for an online Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) library and tool that assesses the environmental and human health impact of sustaining a humanities collection.  The investigators will produce three representative Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) reports; document the most prevalent activities, products, and events that are part of collections care and access work in museums and historic sites; produce a beta version of a tool for evaluating LCA; and develop a plan for next steps to create a robust LCA library and online tool.  These new resources will allow custodians of cultural heritage to evaluate materials and approaches used to maintain collections, and enhance decision-making for care of all forms of material culture.

A case study investigating the sustainability of digital humanities projects by conducting user surveys and oral histories related to the developmental history of an online image collection created in the mid-1990s of medieval architecture and artifacts known as MedArt.  The research will lead to the publication of a Web-based “Socio-Technical Digital Preservation Roadmap” that documents and guides digital humanists and preservation professionals through the preservation planning process.

Questions of sustainability are becoming increasingly central to the work of digital humanists as early digital projects age and as new projects proliferate across disciplines—many of which involve scholars and practitioners who lack a shared knowledge base when it comes to addressing digital preservation needs. Sustaining the work of the digital humanities is clearly a critical task, but there is a lack of meaningful empirical data about the long-term effects of technological and staffing decisions made during project creation processes and over the course of project lifespans. This research, organized as a case study into a landmark and pioneering digital humanities initiative, will provide insight into the ways in which a digital project's sustainability can hinge on accreted decisions over time as well as on complex interactions between human, technological and administrative infrastructures.

The development of a set of protocols, standards, tools, and resources relating to digital curation and stewardship of indigenous cultural heritage that would assist non-Native collecting institutions and local Native American communities to enhance access and management of knowledge about humanities collections.

This project aims to further develop extra-legal solutions to the curatorial challenges posed by Native American and First Nations collections in relation to access and expanding the public record. This Tier II Advanced Implementation Research and Development proposal will support the further development and implementation of the Local Contexts online platform (www.localcontexts.org). In its third phase of development, Local Contexts has already provided educational materials related to intellectual property rights, digital stewardships, co-curation, and a new set of innovative Traditional Knowledge Labels for both Native/First Nations and non-Native collecting institutions. This next phase would extend the platform to create a practical set of tools, models, and workflow for digital curation of Native/First Nations collections across stakeholders. This project will unite Native/First Nations and non-Native communities and institutions who manage and hold their cultural heritage by extending the existing Local Contexts platform into a national, institutional-wide model, focusing on the development and implementation of a new set of standards for providing access to, and structuring use of Native/First Nations cultural heritage collections online.

The development of a standard for the digital sharing of provenance information on works of art through structured Linked Open Data, which will improve the usefulness of provenance data for scholarly research, exhibition programming, and museum collection management.

Art Tracks is Carnegie Museum of Art’s (CMOA) project of to standardize, digitize, and convert the provenance of works of art into structured, Linked Open Data. Phase One of this project has successfully proven the ability of Linked Open Data to create an infrastructure for sharing museum data, with field wide benefit to provenance research. Phase Two will support the extension and full integration with Linked Open Data, add bibliographic references, and convert the date logic to use existing open standards from the library community. CMOA will partner with leaders in the museum field to further test and refine the standard before promoting Art Tracks dissemination and adoption of the CMOA Provenance Standard. CMOA will strongly support the use of Linked Open Data to enrich provenance, support the interconnectedness of the museum community, improve the usefulness of provenance data, and promote new scholarship through an innovative and collaborative approach to provenance research.

Continued development of Quality Control Tools for Video Preservation (QCTools), which will address challenges associated with large-scale and progressively automated video digitization workflows.

Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) seeks to continue the development of the open source project Quality Control Tools for Video Preservation (QCTools). By partnering with Indiana University's Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative (MDPI), BAVC will address key challenges inherent in large-scale and progressively automated video digitization workflows, improving QCTools' usability, intuitiveness, and deployment capabilities. BAVC is committed to providing preservation services that improve efficiency and provide support for the audiovisual preservation community at large. BAVC will apply lessons learned and feedback from the preservationists using QCTools, building upon current strengths to further evolve the project and better support the field of audiovisual preservation for the humanities.