________________________________

From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY on behalf of David Babson
Sent: Mon 12/29/2003 3:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Scanning Artifacts



AMEN!!!  It's, truly, information processing, now.  I did my MA thesis
the "old way," with plates in the back, as required,  and felt, back
then (1987), that it would be great to better integrate the
illustrations and tables.  I look forward to doing that with my
dissertation.

D. Babson.


-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ned
Heite
Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2003 7:53 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Scanning Artifacts


Scanning artifacts, as others have noted, is an efficient way to
illustrate in a hurry, with more than satisfactory results.

A little experimentation with backgrounds will help; the scanner lid may
not be the best surface to shoot against. I've found that a piece of
black material helps distinguish light-colored artifacts from the grey
background my scanner produces from its lid.

Digital imaging might give us a new take on cataloguing procedures and
report production. In the past, imaging and cataloguing have been
separated by the photographic processing step. The image was produced in
a camera, on film that had to be processed, while the description and
catalogue data would be produced on paper or in the computer. The two
would then be reunited somewhere and somewhen, preferably by some
anal-retentive cataloguer type who enjoyed putting together bits and
pieces of unrelated data.

Now, envision a workstation with a computer, a scanner, and a digital
camera on a tripod over a light box.  You take the artifact, describe
it, and "image" it, all in one operation. If you don't like the picture,
you can re-take it. Then you paste the picture into the description
text, and there it is.

The product might be an entry in an electronic catalogue or it might be
a "card" for a traditional catalogue. Either way, it is instant and
complete in one operation. You need to handle, and think about, the
artifact only once.

Now, let's take this idea one step farther.  Traditionally we have
produced our reports with "plates" and "figures" in which each artifact
is treated in three different, possibly widely separated places. This
frustrating and clumsy arrangement, still followed by entirely too many
journals, is an unnecessary inconvenience left over from ancient
printing practices.

As an old printer, maybe I can shed some light on the subject. Let's
look at the traditional letterpress method of producing scholarly
texts:

First there was the picture (referred to as a "plate") sometimes printed
on glossy paper. Then there was the caption to the plate, which might be
some distance away. Then, buried in the text, was a discussion of the
artifact.  This dispersed arrangement was made necessary by letterpress
printing methods.

In the old days of letterpress printing, fine illustrations were printed
on "gravure" presses, using special processes and slick paper. Not
infrequently, the plates were printed in a different plant from the text
printing. To save money, photo-engraved plates were produced with
artifacts all bunched together. This is where we get the term "plate"
for photographic images. Again, to save money, the plates were
full-page, and captions frequently were printed on separate, cheaper,
letterpress pages.

Line drawings, called "cuts," were also photo engraved, but they were
printed on the same press that produced the text, so they were called
"figures" in editorial jargon.  But, again, it was cheaper and more
convenient to make the "cuts" full page.

The body text of the report was set, sometimes by hand and sometimes by
machine, as "straight matter," from movable type or machine-made slugs.
In either case, it was difficult to wrap text around straight matter, so
the printers preferred whole pages of cuts and whole pages of text.  All
the text could therefore be set "full measure" and not altered in the
imposition process that produced the book's pagination.

Today, some pedants insist on separate plates and figures, and
discourage illustrations in text. I have had reports rejected by the
SHPO because I numbered the "figures" and "plates" together.  Some
journals still segregate the photographs at the back of the book but put
the line drawings with the text.

These artificial separations no longer have any justification in
mechanical practice, but they continue to bedevil us.  Professors, at
this very moment, are telling their students to follow the old
arrangement, no matter how nonsensical it may be in today's technology.

Desktop publishing allows us to integrate all kinds of illustrations,
wrap text around pictures, and control the appearance of every page, as
we write.  So why should we group artifact illustrations in separate
pages? Why not wrap the description and discussion around the
illustration of the artifact? We no longer have a technological
imperative to arrange our reports in clumsy blocks of plates, figures
and text, but we continue to do so.

In our shop, the separate text and illustrations are a thing of the
past. We can take that unified description with picture and slap it into
the text wherever it makes sense.  We can weave discussion and
illustration together  in a coherent, journalistic, product without the
scholarly paraphrenalia that makes so many reports so opaque.

Typographic freedom has given us another ability to communicate more
effectively. Back in the old days, big blocks of tabular matter were
segregated at the appendices, where they were cumbersome and largely
ignored except by the most intrepid readers.  Today, we don't do
appendices in our reports.  We can reformat our tabular materials into
blocks that can be inserted in the text, using the "frame" function of
Microsoft Word. So you can see the tabular data and the text without
having to break your train of thought.

Cumbersome artifacts from the old days of letterpress printing are no
longer an uncomfortable necessity, but I'm sure a few twits in authority
will continue to insist that they are "necessary" for something or
another.

--
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A sure sign you're over the hill is when you catch yourself referring to
your "dress" Birkenstocks!