Rethinking "But this is how we've always done it!"

In the world of digital imaging, digital projects and labs can often get into a rut when it comes to digitizing procedures and workflows. Staff and workers alike can resist change or alterations to their processes, claiming “But this is how we’ve always done it.” Beyond the factuality of this statement being dubious in many cases (considering the relative youth of most digital projects), this is not the best reason to maintain any standard or workflow. This presentation looks at imaging and workflow testing as a way to define sound reasons for using given digitization procedures in the Digital Projects Lab at the University of North Texas. The presenter examined several possible imaging procedures (including scanner settings and post-scanning processing), both old and new to the lab, to identify the workflow that produced the most faithful representation of the items being digitized. Data collected using visual surveys by the digital lab staff better enabled the lab to identify the most efficient and accurate workflow for the digitization work.