Metamorfoze

What is Metamorfoze?
Metamorfoze is the National Program for the Preservation of Paper Heritage (Nationaal Programma voor het Behoud van het Papieren Erfgoed), a collaboration between the National Library of the Netherlands and the Nationaal Archief (National Archive). The program is an initiative of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.

The goal of the program is to preserve paper heritage that is threatened by accelerated autonomous decay. In time, such paper documents can no longer be handled and will eventually be lost. That is why these documents are digitized. To ensure that all the information from the fragile originals ends up in the digital file, Metamorfoze places very high demands on the digitization of the originals. Aside from the technical demands of the digital file, Metamorfoze provides guidelines for logistical handling of originals and digital files both.

What is Metamorfoze at Pictura?
An institute offers Pictura the original documents for digitization.

• According to the Metamorfoze guidelines, a qualified employee of Pictura will first photograph four test cards for lighting, color, sharpness and distortion.
• A controller will verify the quality of the test cards using special software.
• After approval the scanning of the documents commences.
• A test series will be made in the morning, in the afternoon, at the end of the afternoon and in the evening. If any of these series does not meet the quality standards, the set-up will be examined and if necessary adjusted and all scans between that test series and the previous one will be redone.
• A small color card and Kodak grayscale will be photographed along with each original. In this way each digitized original will have a lighting and color reference.
• After the scanning, a one-for-one visual verification will be done to ensure the completeness of the digital files and the original documents.

By following the aforementioned points, Pictura can guarantee compliance to the high standards of Metamorfoze.

Pictura will supply Metamorfoze in The Hague with all the digital files. Metamorfoze is ultimately responsible for the quality of the files. After their approval, Pictura delivers the files to the institute. Files are provided including any derivatives such as jpeg pictures for a website. When we fill a hard drive with all the files we need to deliver at Metamorfoze and the institute, we will perform an MD5 check to ensure the files are without errors.

Metamorfoze guarantees the quality of all the scanned images.

This is how our paper heritage is preserved for the future. Pictura applies the Metamorfoze level of quality to avoid having to redo the entire process because there are consequences to redoing such a process with fragile documents, such as having to transport them once more to be able to scan them. To avoid these consequences Pictura will always do its own inspection to ensure the Metamorfoze quality level for the full 100%.

For additional information on Metamorfoze, you can visit www.metamorfoze.nl.