One of the many services the Center for Digital Scholarship provides is access to high-quality preservation equipment, including flatbed and film negative scanners, and skilled staff that can help scholars use them. Recently, a team working with Theater Professor Ruben Polendo has been working in the CDS to digitize content related to his past work with his Theater Mitu company. Using equipment such as the Epson Expression 10000XL flatbed scanner, the Hasselblad Flextight scanner and our video digitization station, research associates have been digitizing documents such as scripts, photographs, brochures, and related ephemera related to Professor Polendo’s work over the last twenty years. The team’s goal is to digitize this material for teaching purposes but also long term preservation, creating an artist’s archive that comprises two decades of artistic work and related research.
Nicholas Martin, Archives and Special Collections Librarian, has also been advising on preservation specifications and techniques to ensure that the materials are captured in such a way that they will be accessible in years to come.
Read more about Theater Mitu’s archival project in The National’s recent article here.
