Digitization of photographic material has commenced

December 10th 2009

The content supplying parties, Sound and Vision, Filmmuseum and National Archive have collaborated intensively over a one year period to draw up the estimate and the European tender for the digitization of photographs and negatives. The National Archive facilitated this process due to its know-how in the field of photo digitization and conservation.

On Thursday,  December 10, three managing directors of the consortium Images for the Future and two contractors signed the final contract, thereby ending the test phase which lasted for two months during which time the companies Pictura and Microformat successfully demonstrated their expertise in this field. And now the production work for scanning the first bulk of photographs (a total of 1.379.000 items) can be undertaken. The material consists of glass negatives, film negatives and prints i.a. and includes magnificent collections belonging to the various cultural heritage institutions.

The signers are Sandra den Hamer from Filmmuseum, Hans Westerhof from Sound and Vision, Martin Berendse from National Archive, Jaap Baars from Microformat and Onno Zaman from Pictura. The contract signing was followed by a toast and Martin Berendse expressed his gratitude for the achievement of this milestone and for the constructive collaboration.