Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) International Workshop on Rescue of Climate Records in the Mediterranean Basin Taragona, Spain, November 2007

Content 1.Base material 2.What kind of scanners do we use? 3.How do we get the data into spreadsheets? 4.Do’s and don'ts Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience

Base material 1.Hardcopy (original or copy) 2.Films 3.Digital images

What kind of scanners do we use? 1.Bookscanner 2.Large format scanner 3.Fast document scanner Contex Chameleon G600 Canon DR5010C CopiBook bookscanner Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience

How do we get the data into spreadsheets? 1.Manually typing 2.Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software 3.Using speach recognition software 4.Automatic Curve Extraction (ACE) software Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience

Do’s and don'ts (1) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience Start with an inventarisation of historical climate data

Do’s and don'ts (2) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience Check if the data is already available somewhere in digitized form

Do’s and don'ts (3) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience A professional should check the data source before having it digitized

Do’s and don'ts (4) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience Gather all relevant metadata and supply them (at least in English) together with the digitized data

Do’s and don'ts (5) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience Use university students for typing in your data but let them know what is expected of them and check them regularly

Do’s and don'ts (6) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience Don’t forget to rigorously quality control your data

Do’s and don'ts (7) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience Don’t assume that processing the data after digitization is routine work

Do’s and don'ts (8) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience For many data sources it is worthwhile to supply images of the original data together with the digitized data

Do’s and don'ts (9) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience Use the operational infrastructure of your institute for centrally archiving (including back-up) of digitized data and digital images

Do’s and don'ts (10) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience Assess the sustainability of your storage media

Do’s and don'ts (11) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience Put the data freely on the internet and provide the world databases with a copy

Do’s and don'ts (12) Data rescue and digitization: tips and tricks resulting from the Dutch experience ! Enjoy your work!!