WWII Archives:Multimedia Guide

Welcome to the WWII Archives Multimedia Guide! This guide is intended to lay out the rules, advice, and regulations for uploading and managing files on the WWII Archives. Before you begin to upload or digitize anything please read this Guide.

Scanning and digitizing

Which scanner to use?

• When scanning any document, photograph, etc, if possible use a flatbed scanner instead of a printer scanner which are lower in quality.
• If not try to find a place that can professionally digitally scan for you.
• If you have neither of these options, you may use a printer scanner

Clean scanner before you scan, and have a clean area around it

• Before and every few scans, please ensure that there aren't hairs, smudges, dust, or anything else on the scanning glass while scanning, otherwise it will show up on scan.
• Try using a can of compressed air to spray every few scans.
• Keep a clean space around the scanning area, no food or drinks at all, and do not be eating or drinking in the process either.
• Try to also wear gloves (such as Latex gloves) when handling scannable material.

Set resolution/DPI

• While scanning, the lowest resolution you should go is 800 dpi. Anything below 800 isn't acceptable.
• 1600 is acceptable if necessary, and only go to 4200 if absolutely needed.

Scan every part

• On any kind of scan, the goal is to scan the whole document, photo, item, etc as much as possible. That means the entirety of the object must be viewable on the scan file.
• Therefore every scan should have the background of the scanner or surface the object is on (if using a camera) be viewable in the scan to ensure all of the object is scanned.
• Also, SCAN ALL SIDES, even if the other side is blank and doesn't have anything on it, scan it anyways.

Shining a light through the document

Some documents and things reveal something when shone a light through, such as a seal. So to capture it, unless if there is a possible way you can do it with a scanner, find a light and camera in a dark area with no other light and capture the light shining through.

Do not modify scanned files

• DO NOT MODIFY SCANNED FILES BEFORE, AFTER, OR WHILE DIGITIZING. Neither the color or other settings in photoshop or any kind of editor. Just save the original files, put them in a pdf (as later instructed) and then upload
• Unfortunately right now a future side-by-side upload may be created with a "corrected image" but not for now.
• As for Negatives, you may scan the original negative, front and back, and then create a copy of both where you turn it into a positive. Then on the pdf the originals will go first and then the positives.

Color cards

• Since many scanners don't capture the exact color, you may put a color to indicate the original coloring in real life as a separate scan for that particular scanner, and then put it among one of the scan pdfs in your collection. However still do not modify the original scans.
• However it isn't required to have a correction card.

Saving the scanned files

• When saving a scan or digitization, save as .tif or .tiff. If you can't .png
• DO NOT SAVE AS JPG OR JPEG, as JPEG/JPG will decompress every time it is transferred. Therefore avoid it as much as possible

Combining scans into PDF files

• For every scan for each document and such, you will combine the scans into one pdf file. For example one photograph will have two pages/files for front and back.
• However you cannot just use any way to convert files into pdf, since some ways will just paste it on a white page for each pdf page instead of just the file.
• The following are the different ways to convert scans properly to pdf:

Mac OS

For Mac OS, there isn't a complete tutorial on the method of creating a pdf that is required. But in any case here are some videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnHjzbmEr4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf0kI8leZ-8

Here are the steps:

1. Either select all of the images or just one you are turning into a pdf and click on it.
2. Click on the dropdown in between the red, yellow, and green dots, and the title of the image file(s)
3. click on "Thumbnails"
4. If you had selected all the files selected before you opened them in Preview, then you don't need to do steps 2 and 3.
5. Select all of the files on the left side (in the Thumbnails section)
6. Go to the top of your screen, click on "File", then click on "Export..." or "Export the selected images"
7. If there is a dropdown to convert to different file types, then select PDF, otherwise there shouldn't be any selection, and you choose the folder to put your pdf, and click on "Save"
8. Then go to the folder you placed the pdfs, and there should be a pdf file of each scan in there. Click on the front scan, go to "Thumbnails" again, and drag the other pdf files from the folder into the side bar. You will then position them in the correct order, and then Command+S to save.

Note that while doing this there are some metadata/information about the file (not the actual image just information about it so its fine) that is lost, that you will need to indicate as presented in the section about adding metadata/information.

Windows

Here is the tutorial for Windows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNmh9T6WbUE

Adobe Acrobat

Here is a tutorial on how to do it in Adobe Acrobat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7LsOMt3kNQ

Filming, taking photos, etc

What device to use

If you are filming an interview or something else, the ideal thing to use is a dedicated camcorder, digital camera, or a phone (unless it is terrible quality then attempt to find something else). It is also advised for interviews to buy a microphone, charger (if your battery runs out faster)

.MOV and HEIC file format

On apple devices, videos are saved as the .MOV file format and images the .HEIC format. Unfortunately these aren't viewable on the WWII Archives in those formats, therefore unless if you don't care for playing or seeing the video/image on the Archives, for .MOV file formats it is better to convert it to mp4, and for images .png (You can also try tif/tiff and in many cases you will be putting it into PDF format so it won't matter much in this case).

Uploading

Places to upload

Generally, and in most cases, you want to upload through Special:UploadWizard on this website. However, in the rare case that it might not be working, you might want to try Special:Upload, which you will notice doesn't have a loading bar, and will in most cases probably not work.

Uploading to the Internet Archive for things over 1 Gb in size

If the file that you are uploading surpasses the 1Gb size limit, then you will not be able to upload on this site. Instead, if you need to upload something that is over 1 Gb, then do so on the Archive.org website (the organization that runs the Wayback Machine). Just sign up, and then upload. It is suggested that you link to the files on the articles on the WWII Archives that are related to those digitized items. For example, if you did an interview with someone that is over 1 Gb in size, and upload it to the Internet Archive, then you will link/source the uploaded interview on the article page of the person interviewed. Typically if it is a document, photograph, etc then you will link it to the category page and put a link to it on the category page on the WWII Archives.

Setting the license and ownership

If you were the owner of the document that is being uploaded, it is highly suggested that you use the "This file isn't my work" option, as you will be able to indicate where the document comes from and how it came into your ownership, as well as being able to set the license that you want to put on there. Otherwise if you do not own the files being uploaded, then you will indicate that they are not of your ownership, where they come from, and what the license for those files are as indicated from the source you got them from.

Adding More data about your scan/upload

As seen previously, much of the scanning, uploading, filming, etc involves converting to new file formats. In doing so each time, you loose original metadata from the original file. In order to reverse much of this, you must input the Template:Multimedia_data and input the info in the fields. This is to easily know what dpi, what device was used, what software was used, etc. You will put this template at the end of each file page (before the categories)

Categories

Categories are very important to organization of files. Categories for files are more for collections of documents found. For example, if you had an old packet in your grandparent's attic that pertain to things related to your family during the war, and you digitize them, you will create a category with the same name as the label on the packet or relatively the same name, and the digitized documents that were in that packet will go in that category. If you find a stack inside that packet, then you should keep it in that order, scan it in that order, and in the name of each digitized file uploaded, there should be a number of where that document was in the order of the stack. For example one might be: "57 - Letter from John Smith to his parents 3 March 1944", which would indicate that this document was number 57 in the order of the stack, and that it is a letter from a man named John Smith to his parents that is dated to 3 March 1944. For the most part this number organization should organize the category from 1 to the last document in that stack.

Managing uploaded files

Adding metadata/information not shown or lost in the file

As mentioned earlier while converting the tif files into pdfs, a lot of the metadata will be lost. Alternatively, there is information that won't be put in the metadata in the first place. Therefore it is your job to add the additional useful information pertaining to those files in the description. Things such as date digitized, what scanner was used, what program was used with the scanner, what resolution (dpi) was it scanned at, did you rotate any of the pages of the pdf file (sometimes some documents have multiple pages that open up like a book and are too big to be scanned horizontally, and so you will need to scan the entire thing vertically. This is one of the few times you are allowed to do modifications, but even for modifications it is very helpful to indicate what modifications you made, but still don't do image editing), and more. If you are uploading an interview, it might be helpful to indicate the location, what you recorded it on, etc that isn't indicated in the video.

Indicating dimensions/size

As we're trying to digitize and get a complete picture of what the object were digitizing is, it is obviously important to note down the dimensions and size of the object. When you do this, absolutely do it in metric, because it has more precision than imperial does. You can add an indicator of what it looks like in imperial thats fine, but always have it and do it in metric first (note that the size usually indicated on scanning programs in dimensions are almost always not actual measurements of the scan area, rather for printing among other things, so don't use that).

Other description

Of course other than the stuff mentioned above, there is more description about the thing itself, particularly about the document/object as well as analyzing it and transcribing it. In particular for transcribing things, you will use either of two different Templates. The first is "Single language document quote", which is for documents that are only in one language. The second is: "Double language document quote", which is used for transcribing documents with one or more languages used other than English.

Uploading new versions of a file

This is only really necessary if you made an error in the original management of the files or scans of the documents. Another is if you have an even better scan of the document(s) in question than you perviously had. Any of this kind of stuff should be indicated in the description of what changed.

Adding files to articles and other pages

In order to add files to articles/pages, consult the following page on MediaWiki on how to do so: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images