Anwenderbericht, Case study
“Monster Petition” digitised
It belongs to the most important testimonies of the worldwide women’s rights movement: The Petition for the introduction of women’s suffrage of 1893 in New Zealand. This unique historical document, which is recorded in the UNESCO program “Memory of the World”, was digitised by Archives New Zealand, the country’s national archive, in an extraordinary project. The challenges were great: how can several hundred pages glued to each other be electronically captured in a gentle way and with best image quality?
Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, 1893: John Hall, a Member of Parliament and a supporter of the suffragette movement, walked gracefully to the middle of the plenary hall and proudly presented to the assembled members a tightly written scroll, which, due to its size, was called “Monster Petition”.
It contained both the demand for the introduction of the women’s suffrage and over 30,000 signatures collected for this purpose. A quick movement of John Hall’s arm sufficed to unfurl the 564 pages of the document which covered the main centre aisle of the hall up to the end of the wall.
This dramatic appearance did not fail to make an impact. On 19 September 1893, Governor Glasgow signed a new electoral law, which made New Zealand the first country in the world to give women the right to vote. The majority of the other democratic states – including England and the USA – only introduced women’s suffrage much later, after the end of the First World War.
“The ‘Women’s Suffrage Petition’ is the best proof that fighting for democratic rights is worth the trouble”, says Margaret Parbhu, Acting Director of Holdings & Discovery at Archives New Zealand.
Ambitious digitisation
Until now the Petition could only be viewed – on microfilm – in the reading Room of the Wellington Office of Archives New Zealand. As part of the120th anniversary of the Petition in 2013, we wanted to make digital images of the complete Women’s Suffrage Petition available online”, said Margaret Parbhu describing the ambitious goal.
The first step was to scan all the pages of the Petition with the Zeutschel OS 12000 HQ.
In many ways, the digitisation process proved to be a big challenge.
It started with logistics. The Petition had to be removed from the showcase in the Constitution Room and taken to the conservation laboratory in order to be carefully unfurled. Scanning the images took place in the Digital Copying Centre under strict safety precautions.
The Petition is in a very fragile condition. It is not, as had previously been assumed, a single long document, but consists of several separate parts in different conditions.
“The gentle treatment of the original is the most important factor during the scanning process”, confirms David Adams, the head of Imaging Services at Alexander Turnbull Library, who was in charge for the selection of the scanning and copying system.
The second important requirement of the digitisation project was the creation of extremely accurate and colourfast images. “The signatures of the Petition are in inks of different colours. Using high-resolution colour images – 600 ppi TIFF files – we created detailed views, which were previously only possible when looking at the original scroll”, explains David Sanderson, Senior Advisor, Archives Online at Archives New Zealand.
The first phase of the project was concluded successfully and high-quality digital images of all 564 pages of the Women’s Suffrage Petition were created.
“Our next objective is to enable the search for individual names in the document. Once the name is found, the user can go directly to the corresponding page. Enlarged images, as well as a grouping of names by regions and the display of the desired region on a map are to be added later”, states Margaret Parbhu explaining the next steps.
Besides eventually appearing on Archives New Zealand catalogue the images are also to be made available to the general public on the web pages of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.
Continuous operation
As a consequence, Archives New Zealand and the Alexander Turnbull Library continue to expand their digitisation activities. “Since the start of the project, the scanner has been in operation continuously, both for on-demand services and for long-term preservation projects”, says David Sanderson, who oversees much of the work in the Digital Copying Centre at Archives new Zealand.
“The digital image captured on the Zeutschel reproduces the original document much better than the reproductions created by the digital SLR camera technology which has been used so far”, states David Sanderson.
The time needed for post-production, including image post-processing, could be reduced, leading to an increase of the overall imaging productivity. David Sanderson: “The scanner allows us to create digital images of our valuable collections with colour fidelity and high resolution in a much more efficient way compared to previous methods.”
David Sanderson hopes that in future a scanner will be available for large-format originals like maps, plans and other documents, which are larger than A2. “Then we could capture even the tiniest details electronically, something which still challenges us today, notwithstanding the possibilities of stitching.”
http://archives.govt.nz/
http://www.natlib.govt.nz/atl
Archives New Zealand keeps the memory of the fight for
democratic rights alive “Monster Petition” digitised It belongs to the most important
testimonies of the worldwide women’s rights movement: The Petition for the
introduction of women’s suffrage of 1893 in New Zealand. This unique historical
document, which is recorded in the UNESCO program “Memory of the World”, was
digitised by Archives New Zealand, the country’s national archive, in an
extraordinary project. The challenges were great: how can several hundred pages
glued to each other be electronically captured in a gentle way and with best
image quality?Wellington,
the capital of New Zealand, 1893: John Hall, a Member of Parliament and a
supporter of the suffragette movement, walked gracefully to the middle of the
plenary hall and proudly presented to the assembled members a tightly written
scroll, which, due to its size, was
called “Monster Petition”.It
contained both the demand for the introduction of the women’s suffrage and over
30,000 signatures collected for this purpose. A quick movement of John Hall’s
arm sufficed to unfurl the 564 pages of the document which covered the main
centre aisle of the hall up to the end of the wall.This
dramatic appearance did not fail to make an impact. On 19 September 1893, Governor
Glasgow signed a new electoral law, which made New Zealand the first country in
the world to give women the right to vote. The majority of the other democratic
states – including England and the USA – only introduced women’s suffrage much
later, after the end of the First World War.“The
‘Women’s Suffrage Petition’ is the best proof that fighting for democratic
rights is worth the trouble”, says Margaret Parbhu, Acting Director of Holdings
& Discovery at Archives New Zealand.Ambitious digitisationUntil
now the Petition could only be viewed – on microfilm – in the reading Room of
the Wellington Office of Archives New Zealand. As part of the120th anniversary of the Petition
in 2013, we wanted to make digital images of the complete Women’s Suffrage
Petition available online”, said Margaret Parbhu describing the ambitious goal.The
first step was to scan all the pages of the Petition with the Zeutschel OS
12000 HQ.In
many ways, the digitisation process proved to be a big challenge. It
started with logistics. The Petition had to be removed from the showcase in the
Constitution Room and taken to the conservation laboratory in order to be carefully
unfurled. Scanning the images took place in the Digital Copying Centre under
strict safety precautions. The
Petition is in a very fragile condition. It is not, as had previously been
assumed, a single long document, but consists of several separate parts in
different conditions.“The
gentle treatment of the original is the most important factor during the
scanning process”, confirms David Adams, the head of Imaging Services at
Alexander Turnbull Library, who was in charge for the selection of the scanning
and copying system.The
second important requirement of the digitisation project was the creation of
extremely accurate and colourfast images. “The signatures of the Petition are
in inks of different colours. Using high-resolution colour images – 600 ppi
TIFF files – we created detailed views, which were previously only possible
when looking at the original scroll”, explains David Sanderson, Senior Advisor,
Archives Online at Archives New Zealand.The
first phase of the project was concluded successfully and high-quality digital
images of all 564 pages of the Women’s Suffrage Petition were created.“Our
next objective is to enable the search for individual names in the document.
Once the name is found, the user can go directly to the corresponding page.
Enlarged images, as well as a grouping of names by regions and the display of
the desired region on a map are to be added later”, states Margaret Parbhu
explaining the next steps.Besides
eventually appearing on Archives New Zealand catalogue the images are also to
be made available to the general public on the web pages of the Ministry for
Culture and Heritage, and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.Continuous operationAs
a consequence, Archives New Zealand and the Alexander Turnbull Library continue
to expand their digitisation activities. “Since the start of the project, the
scanner has been in operation continuously, both for on-demand services and for
long-term preservation projects”, says David Sanderson, who oversees much of
the work in the Digital Copying Centre at Archives new Zealand.“The
digital image captured on the Zeutschel reproduces the original document much
better than the reproductions created by the digital SLR camera technology
which has been used so far”, states David Sanderson.The
time needed for post-production, including image post-processing, could be
reduced, leading to an increase of the overall imaging productivity. David Sanderson:
“The scanner allows us to create digital images of our valuable collections
with colour fidelity and high resolution in a much more efficient way compared
to previous methods.”David
Sanderson hopes that in future a scanner will be available for large-format
originals like maps, plans and other documents, which are larger than A2. “Then
we could capture even the tiniest details electronically, something which still
challenges us today, notwithstanding the possibilities of stitching.”http://archives.govt.nz/
http://www.natlib.govt.nz/atl