Cameras as Research Tools: A guide to tools & techniques   Tags: olin_research, olin_subject, research  

A digital camera, whether it is a high-end DSLR (digital single lens reflex), palm-sized point & shoot, or iPhone, can be used as a personal handheld scanner. And it can save you a lot of time and expense, especially if you do research in rare book collections and archives. This guide covers the issues that camera-weilding researchers might encounter in using cameras as research tools, either in a library or archives or in the field.

The librarians at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created a very nice guide for the Digital Historian Series on using digital cameras in archival research:

uiuc.libguides.com/techives

It presents excellent information on desired camera features, picture taking techniques, file organization strategies, backup practices, computer software, articles, and links to further information. One particularly useful feature it offers is a worksheet for keeping records on what you photograph, which you can adapt for your own use:

Organization page (left column)

Kirklin Bateman, Sheila Brennan, Douglas Mudd, and Paula Petrik, "Taking a Byte Out of the Archives: Making Technology Work for You" Perspectives (American Historical Association) Jan. 2005.

Victorian Spy Camera Watch, by Brett Jordan. Source: Flickr.