Milestone: fourteen proposals for digitizing photo collections

June 9th 2009

Thursday, June 4 at 2 P.M. the deadline for delivering proposals for the digitization of photographic material from the National Archive, the Filmmuseum and the Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision expired. The Tender included over 1.300.000 photographs and negatives. The National Archive called for this European tender.

In good time the consortium partners got together in Amsterdam at the office of the consultancy that gives guidance to this European tender. The last proposal came in just ten minutes before closing time. The result was an impressive stack of packages from at home and abroad. Before we unwrapped the packages, a long period of preparation and good collaboration was festively brought to an end with cake and champagne.

What followed, could justifiably be compared to Christmas: while the envelopes were being opened one by one, we were anxiously waiting to hear which one of the four partial assignments the proposals contained and at what price. After an enervating 30 minutes the situation was as follows: for the four partial assignments a total of 14 proposals were put out by six different parties from the Netherlands, Canada and the USA. The prices offered by the suppliers easily enable us to reach the project’s goals.

In the upcoming weeks the proposals will be precisely judged by the parties of the consortium to select the candidate with the best quality-price relation. After a trial period the digitization of an extraordinary part of our cultural heritage will commence.