The Process
"Slices, dices, chops, peels and grates..." - Chris Nahatis
Even though we offer various services, each of those services are part of what is needed to create archive websites, which why YourArchivist is here. There is a simple process that we follow to that end.
- Initial Consultation
In person or by phone, we discuss what you have, what we can do, and what it will cost. When the decision to move forward is made, we will try to find out more about you and your artifacts, such as where they came from, how old they are, and if there are any more anywhere that should be in the archive.
- Scan Originals
We carefully scan your originals, cataloging them (adding them to a database) in the process. Then the originals are boxed according to your preference, including whatever the state of the art may be in protective storage. The original scans are stored on our redundant system as uncompressed image files (tiffs). We also create compressed versions (jpeg) of these, and deliver both to you on writeable storage media.
- Organize Digital Artifacts
With some guidance from us and with explorer software, this is a job for you, the archive owner. You can make this more fun by inviting a family member to come help. First you start with broad catagories, and then you start breaking those down into subcatagories, and subcatagories of those, etc., as needed.
School yearbooks and some scrapbooks are already organized. But typically your boxes of family photos are not organized, so to have an easy to navigate website you will have to do some organizing. - Create Website
After getting back an organized set of your digital reproductions, YourArchivist will create all the pages except the home page. The home page is custom which we develop with you. Once the archive pages are created and there is a home page, we upload the project to your web host. Done.
- Add to Website
New artifacts can be added in the future. You can add, move, remove, or change items in the archive as you please. How much it costs depends on how many new items are added (lab charges), and if the home page needs to be modified, but the website build automation and upload process do not incur great cost. You will need us to update your website with these changes