Emagines

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Emagines is a project funded by the German Research Foundation from 2006 to 2012 for the electronic archiving of the extensive and sometimes very old image holdings of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI). These are digitized in a strategic long-term plan and made accessible worldwide via the Arachne web database operated by the German Archaeological Institute and the Work Center for Digital Archeology (CoDArchLab) .

Requirements and goals

The project started in 2006 with glass negatives from the international departments of the DAI in Athens, Istanbul and Cairo (Emagines1), in 2008 negatives from Rome, Madrid as well as the head office in Berlin and the Eurasia department (Emagines2) were added. With the third and so far last project phase (Emagines3), the data was increased to a total of more than 150,000 scans with a further 60,000 scanned glass negatives from the Athens and Rome departments as well as from the photo libraries of the headquarters and the Orient department. These negatives contain historical recordings with a focus on ancient sculpture, topography and architecture, although some motifs no longer exist today or no longer exist in the form recorded at that time. In addition, they are acute from physical decay or destruction - e.g. B. by environmental influences, natural disasters such as earthquakes and last but not least by manual use - threatened.

One goal of the Emagines project is therefore the permanent digital preservation of the information contained in the glass negatives. In addition, the provision of the negatives within the Arachne (image database) enables comprehensive use of the image material, which has so far been prevented primarily by the inhomogeneous documentation situation and the partial overlapping of the material. The digitized image stocks of the project remain the copyright property of the DAI and are therefore shown to the Arachne guest with the DAI's watermark. The internet presentation of the images also serves as a platform for an online ordering system, which is currently in the trial phase.

As part of the database processing, the text information supplied by the DAI about the objects shown on the negatives are optimized by z. B. appropriate recent research literature is given. The Arachne database was changed not only in terms of content, but also technically in order to do justice to the heterogeneous material of the project, which is extremely broad in terms of genre, chronology and cultural history. New input masks have therefore been developed for a number of such object groups in order to be able to describe the central properties of the material in question. Extensions and adjustments were necessary for existing input masks.

workflow

In order not to endanger the sensitive stocks by long-distance transports, the glass negatives are scanned in simultaneous recording processes in the individual departments of the DAI. From there the scans are sent to the FA, where they are further processed digitally, photographically and in terms of database technology, and are long-term stored in the SAN of the University of Cologne for the DAI.

A central documentation complex of the DAI is thus made accessible to research in a web-based manner.

Data

At the end of 2009, over 80,000 glass negatives could be queried via Arachne, of which approx. 44,000 belong to Emagines2. A fuzzy meta search for the character string 'Emagines' led to a total overview of over 48,000 (results of the sub-projects Emagines 1 and Emagines 2) object data sets in various categories to which the glass negatives in Arachne are assigned. In the so-called image navigation, it was possible to query the aforementioned 80,000 image data records that address the glass negative as such.

Since the last phase (Emgines3), more than 63,000 object data records have been recorded for the keyword "Emagines". A total of 152,096 image data sets with primary metadata and object links can be queried.

literature

  • M. Keuler - M. Lang, EMAGINES. Database preparation of historical glass negatives of the German Archaeological Institute in ARACHNE, KuBA 1, 2011, 177–179.
  • M. Keuler - M. Lang - S. Moshfegh Nia - A. Serifis - J. Szczepanski, project: EMAGINES. Database preparation of historical glass negatives of the German Archaeological Institute in ARACHNE - third project section, KuBA 2, 2012, 271–274.
  • E. Laufer, Emagines. Digitization of glass negatives by the DAI from the early 20th century, in: P. Scheding - M. Remmy (Ed.) Antike Plastik 5.0: //. 50 Years Research Archive for Ancient Sculpture in Cologne (Münster 2014), 133–141.

Web links