UVa Library Digital Production Group, Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections Library, 160 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA (2026)

The Digitization Services unit of Digital Curation Services of the University of Virginia Library is one of the primary caretakers responsible for the transformation of the Library's rare and unique materials to digital formats. Using specialized equipment to properly handle these materials, we digitize such varied objects as rare books, manuscripts, maps, and other artifactual objects.

06/12/2026

✨🎉“I recently digitized a bound copy of The Letters of Ackerman, a project that required a great deal of patience and care. The book contains more than 1,000 pages made from very thin, semi-transparent paper, making it difficult to scan using normal methods. To prevent text from the reverse side from showing through, I had to place a sheet of white paper behind each page before scanning.

This process had to be repeated over a thousand times, one page at a time. The fragile nature of the paper also required extremely careful handling to avoid tears, creases, or damage to the binding. What seemed like a routine scanning project became a meticulous preservation effort focused on both image quality and the protection of a delicate historical document.” -Eze Amos

05/06/2026

✨There’s always something fascinating about zooming in on the smallest details. Using the Image Viewer during our quality assurance checks lets us experience every line in the etching as seen in this post.

04/15/2026

From the archives to the present-day Moon 🌙

Over the past few weeks, the Digital Production Group has been conducting pre‑conservation scans of the Atlas Photographique de la Lune plates. Created between 1896 and 1910 by astronomers Maurice Loewy and Pierre Henri Puiseux at the Observatoire de Paris, these plates were captured with the Grand Équatorial Coudé telescope and record the Moon across different lunar phases.

Currently in the studio are plates XXIII–###, each revealing intricate details of the Moon’s surface—craters, mountain ranges, and the dark plains early astronomers called “oceans.” As excitement built around Artemis II and a crater proposed to be named Carroll, we invited UVA librarian and astronomer Ricky Patterson to take a closer look with us.

While the plates presently in the studio don’t offer a direct view of Carroll, Plate XXVII—dated 26 April 1898, 7:09 p.m. (Paris time)—captures the Moon’s opposite edge. Ricky noted that while the same side of the Moon largely faces Earth due to tidal locking, a subtle effect known as libration causes the Moon to appear to rock slightly. This allows us occasional glimpses just beyond the lunar edge, where Carroll is located. With that in mind, Ricky noted that plate LVII in the Atlas may indeed show the area of the Moon containing Carroll.

Welcome back to earth Artemis II and crew.- Stacey Evans

03/27/2026

Choir book kind of day 🎶✨ post-conservation digitizing in DPG

Address

Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections Library, 160 McCormick Road
Charlottesville, VA
22904

Website

http://www.digitalcurationservices.org/

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