The Vieux Carré Commission Foundation funded this project to digitally capture and archive slides taken by the Vieux Carré Commission from 1965 to 2005. I found a machine that would scan a large volume of slides at a reasonable price. SlideSnapPro sells this unique machine that scans at least 80 slides every 10 minutes. It’s an adapted slide projector with a DSLR camera and micro lens attached. The image is projected directly to the camera and lens, captured as a high-resolution JPG, and then saved directly to the computer.
Each slide needed to be organize, cleaned, and loaded into the carousel for scanning. After scanning, each image needed oriented and filed on the Vieux Carré Commission city server. I decided to use the file name to capture all the data written on the slide so that it would not be lost (ex. address, date, notes, etc.) The physical slides were placed back into the binders and container, now organized by address and clean) and given to the New Orleans Main Public Library for safe-keeping. The entire batch of digital images (the ones I archived and the ones that were converted at an earlier date) were back up on an SSD External Hard Drive as well as an off-site location set up by the City of New Orleans.
The staff is already using the images and fulfilling requests by the public, contractors, and architects for access to them.