Case Study – The Phillips Collection

The Phillips Collection is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, 2021. In addition to doing a retrospective on the art collection and looking for contemporary artists to showcase, the museum also wanted to enhance its legacy through an inaugural archival digitization project.

This project is aimed at getting the correspondence of the museum’s founder, Duncan Phillips, and a collection of historic photographs, imaged and accessible. Thus far we have the imaging underway and are working toward building and implementing infrastructure and workflows that will make these digitized items and other archival collections more widely accessible. We have assessed tools to use and tools to invest in, keeping the institution’s age, resources, and staff in mind.

The Correspondence of Duncan Phillips includes letters spanning most of the twentieth century between himself, or his secretary, wife, and other early museum staff members with artists such as Alfred Stieglitze, professors at Howard and American University, board members of the Museum of Modern Art, and other influential artists and people at art and academic-oriented institutions.

Digitization and the building of infrastructure are critical in allowing The Phillips Collection to recontextualize its works as the institution delves into Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion. Pixel Acuity has been an essential partner in making this work possible, especially as I am a small team, and as we adapt to life during the pandemic. With the use of DT Heritage digitization solutions powered by the Phase One iXG, the Pixel Acuity team was able to digitize over 125,000 collection pieces for The Phillips Collection Archives.

Case Study – The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Too often important information about natural history collections is unavailable due to inaccessibility. For 3-D scientific collections, mass digitization can provide a valuable tool for research and data retrieval. In 2014, Pixel Acuity partnered with the Department of Entomology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Digitization Program Office to safely and efficiently digitize the Museum’s bumblebee specimens.

After the initial pilot project, the digitization team worked together to create comprehensive physical, imaging, and digital workflows so that the specimens and information could be captured quickly and accurately.

During the second phase in 2019, they were able to digitize over 30,000 3-D bumblebee and carpenter bee specimens in just under 8 weeks! Due to this effort, the entire bumblebee and carpenter bee collections are available online. Over 74,000 of these images will be a part of Smithsonian’s open access initiative where they are available for immediate use. As a result of mass digitization and accessibility initiatives such as these, specimen and label information from natural history collections can be preserved and accessible for years to come.

Case Study – The Smithsonian Bee Collection

Physical handling workflows for natural history collections can present a unique challenge for mass digitization. Given the delicate nature of these collections, the handling workflows required, and the many different potential uses for the digital assets, collections such as these must be approached with careful care and consideration.

In 2014, the Department of Entomology at the National Museum of Natural History partnered with Pixel Acuity and the Smithsonian Digitization Program Office in their first attempt at a large-scale mass digitization effort focused on the bumblebee collection because of their importance and intense interest in the scientific community and the general public for native pollinators.

Based on issues identified during that first attempt, we modified workflows and built a more efficient “disassembly line” and subsequent “assembly line” to quickly process bee specimens but keeping everything organized when we revisited and completed digitization of the bumblebees in late 2019 and early 2020.

One of the challenges to mass digitization of insects and their labels is that unlike other disciplines where things are labeled in lots or labels are mounted flat next to the specimens (e.g., slides, botany sheets, etc.), individual insects are pinned and their labels are pinned directly below the specimens. The digitization consequences of that practice are that labels have to be carefully removed from the pins, the insect staged, the labels also staged (in order), images captured, and then the labels must be repinned in the same order they were removed and the bees put back in the exact same position in the exact same unit tray and drawer that they came from.

During this webinar, Dr. Shockley will discuss the lessons learned from the 2014 pilot study, the workflow and personnel required to improve the process, and how more than 30,000 bees were fully digitized in less than 6 weeks in 2019. Why are projects like these important? Discover how digitization has enabled the public to access never-before-seen collections here.

Case Study – The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s Paleo-Biology Department

Pixel Acuity has partnered with the ​Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) Department of Paleobiology and the Smithsonian Institution Digitization Project Office (DPO) on a mass digitization project in support of the Eastern Pacific Invertebrate Communities of the Cenozoic (EPICC) Thematic Collections Network.

These specimens serve as digital records of the collection and diagnostic tools, enabling scientists to better understand how marine ecosystems have responded to events such as the transition to the modern icehouse climate, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), and more.

The EPICC project began with a pilot project in 2017, followed by two production phases in 2017-2018 and 2019-2020, which together resulted in the digitization of over 500,000 marine invertebrates and their specimen labels. As this project has progressed, Pixel Acuity has found ways to increase efficiency and optimize workflows while maintaining museum standards and best practices.

Case Study – Mennello Museum

We were tasked with digitizing and preserving a special collection in partnership with the Mennello Museum in Orlando, Florida. The Mennello Museum holds the Melanson Holt Collection, displaying the works of a variety of artists, including indigenous artists, portraying the American southwest.

This American Paintings collection illuminates the land and people of the American southwest, “document the awe-inspiring desert light, remote lands, and extraordinary way of life in the changing American Southwest through their inventive forms of printmaking and painting alike,” Mennello Museum.

Through the power of Phase One, we were able to bring this collection to life with the advanced Phase One iXH Cultural Heritage camera. Founder and CEO of Pixel Acuity, Eric Philcox, documented the entire experience to share with the Cultural Heritage community.