A number of standard procedures have been developed to create digitized versions of printed originals. The first step in this workflow is the creation of digital images of the historical texts that have been chosen for integration into the corpus.

Philological work on digitized texts more often than not requires data beyond the pure digitized text. The AAC’s text processing procedures aim at the integral conservation of the textual objects. Therefore, all the digital objects of the corpus are also represented as digital images, not only as a means to create digital texts, but also as a second valuable representation of our digital collection. In view of this fact, scanning and imaging gain additional importance in the digitization process.

In creating digital images, various strategies have been pursued. Most of the data is created making use of an up-to-date book scanner which guarantees both high quality and justifiable speed. According to requirements we have been producing high quality greyscale or black and white images. For particular purposes (coloured single pages, covers of books or periodicals and the like material) flat bed scanners and high-resolution digital SLR cameras have been put to use. Enhanced hardware capabilities will allow us to store a higher proportion of colour images in the future.
(Contact: Heinrich Kabas.)