MCN2015

In 2007, the American Art Renewal Fund supported the publication of American Paintings to 1945, the award-winning comprehensive catalogue of NAMA’s American paintings collection. Among the priorities funded by the grant was making the catalogue’s extensive information about the American paintings collection widely available and visible through both nelson-atkins.org and the internet at large.

A 2014 team guided stakeholders through decision-making regarding digitization, partnership with the Internet Archive, and rights agreements. Curatorial staff collaborated with the museum’s rights and reproduction coordinator on developing a process and timeline for clearing new use agreements, leveraging Confluence wiki spaces and JIRA project tracking. Imaging staff developed an easy, streamline process for digitizing the printed catalog that would yield high-quality scans suitable for text extraction and online viewing.In this presentation, we will discuss the processes, the technical and cost advantages, plus lessons-learned.