'Century Chest' Time Capsule Opened In Oklahoma After 100 Years

How safe are your digital files?

‘It is said digital documents last forever or five years, whichever comes first.’

- Jeff Rothenberg (Rand Corporation, 2001)

You’ve invested a great deal of time, energy and money into digitising your archive and now it sits on external hard drives, on your PC, “with IT” or even just on DVD’s! But digitisation is not a “do it and forget” solution. Can you be certain that files won’t go missing, become overwritten, corrupt, be attacked by viruses or that they can still be opened by software in years’ to come?

The archives community now recognises that data disaster can potentially occur to most ordinary computer systems. Some are turning to a ‘cloud based solution’ but the Achilles heel of this solution is the need to be embedded within the internet. This could lead to potential data corruption and data theft vulnerabilities, with your files sitting with thousands of others belonging to organisations outside the heritage sector that have completely different storage needs.

Max has been working with digital heritage archives for over a decade and we have a profound understanding of the requirements for digital preservation. We have now designed a new and innovative digital preservation service that will mitigate virtually all data disaster scenarios. Together with a full consultancy service, we are offering a fully resilient digital preservation solution. This service includes systematic data comparisons to ensure data integrity across multiple devices at differing geographical locations, totally off-line.

We know that price can be an issue, so we are keeping charges to a minimum with costs as low as 3p per month per gigabyte/ £30 per month per terabyte.

We are exhibiting at the Museums & Heritage Show on the 15th and 16th May at Olympia, London. Why don’t you visit our stand for a friendly chat about this new service and our other associated services? Alternatively, email me and I'll send you a free report on digital preservation - or why not do both?!

Chris George
Business Development
Max
T: 020 8309 5445
M: 07790 884050
E: chris@maxcommunications.co.uk

Conservation of photographic materials and restoration of damaged images

Nitrocellouse was used as a low-order explosive and was originally known as guncotton. Nitrocellulose can be plasticized by camphor and from the 1880’s it was used as a film base for photographs, X-ray films and motion picture stock. This was known as nitrate film. Needless to say that numerous fires were caused by unstable nitrate film before it was gradually replaced by safety films based on the stable cellulose acetate film! Many large archives of film that hold vintage photographs or motion picture stock contain this potentially dangerous and unstable nitrate film.

We were recently commissioned by a client to carry out an analysis of their collection and Sarah Allen our photographic materials conservation expert identified that a significant part of the archive contained this potentially unstable film emulsion. The advice we were able to provide enabled the client to make special provision for this material.

Max in association with Sarah Allen has carried out several preservation assessments for organisations such as News International, The Government Art Collection, REME and others. Sarah graduated with an MA in the Conservation of Historic Objects and has since worked for the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, the National Trust and English Heritage, picking up conservation awards along the way!

The aims of the assessments she carries out are to determine the current condition of photographic collections and to recommend a series of steps to ensure the long term care.

Not only can Max provide preservation reviews, we are able to repair photographic material. Repairs can range from simple tears to more complex treatments such as stain removal or even total restoration of photographs that have suffered damage from cellulose triacetate degradation, more commonly known as “Vinegar Syndrome” due to the acidic smell emitted.

Restoration of a picture that had suffered serious damage due to Vinegar Syndrome

Sarah is shown below with a broken glass plate that was fully restored digitally. To enable the item to be scanned effectively before digitisation it needed to assembled (like a jigsaw puzzle) and held firmly in place with a bespoke mask.

 

  

For further information about our Photographic Conservation service then contact Chris George

Computer analysis of the correspondence of King George III to throw new light on his madness?

King George III life and reign were longer than those of any previous monarch. This reign covered the period of Great Britain defeating France in the Seven Years War and becoming the dominant European power in North America and India; the loss of Britain’s colonies in America in the American Revolutionary War; and concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Throughout his reign George III suffered from recurrent episodes of mental illness, and in the later part of his life mental deterioration was to become a more permanent feature. The story of his struggle with mental illness was made into a successful 1994 film the Madness of King George. This film depicts the relatively primitive medical practices of the time and the effort that his doctors made in understanding the human body. Modern medicine has suggested that the symptoms were the result of metabolic blood disorder known as porphyria and chemical analysis of his hair have revealed that his problems were compounded by arsenic poisoning. This arsenic poisoning may have been as a result of the medicines prescribed to treat his mental illness being contaminated with arsenic.

Scientists at St Georges, University of London, in collaboration with historians in collaboration with historians from Universities of Birmingham and Southampton, are seeking new insights into the progressive nature of his mental illness by computer analysis of his letters. This analysis is expected to shed new light on the time, course and duration of King George's deteriorating mental symptoms.  The research team is using detailed texts between the King and the prime ministers of the time; these texts vary in length from just a few lines to much longer. Letters from, before and after his known periods of illness and derangement will be compared. The sophisticated software used in this computational linguistics approach will identify textual abnormalities that are seen in patients with mental illness. These include measures of organisation and coherence in the use of language that emerge from statistical modelling of words and sentence meaning. The work was featured in the BBC Series “Fit to Rule” which deals with the impact of medical conditions on the history of Royal Households through the ages.

To enable the computers to carry out work effectively the text must be structured in a particular way for the software to work properly. Max was tasked with scanning many hundreds of letters from books published in the 18^th Century and then carrying out optical character recognition of the text.

Lord North—I am so desirous that every man in my service that can with propriety take part in the Debate on Tuesday, should speak, that I desire You will very strongly press Sir Gilbert Elliott and any others that have not taken in the last Session so forward a part as their abilities make them capable of, and I have no objection to Your adding that I have particularly directed You to speak to them on this occasion

Max uses a sophisticated OCR system based around Abbyy Recognition server. Despite the high levels of accuracy that we achieve with our system it is inevitable that aberrations will occur. Once the OCR output was created our editors carried out a proofreading to publication service (or ‘POP’ service) to eliminate all ‘false line breaks’ extraneous characters or remove incorrectly spelt words to create a ‘pristine’ copy of the original text ready for inputting into the systems at St Georges University of London.

This important study is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and will the first time that computational linguistics techniques will be used to analyse large volumes of correspondence dating from the 18^th Century.

For further information about our OCR service please contact Chris George at MAX

For information about the research project contact Dr Peter Garrard at the Neuroscience department of St Georges University of London

Our quality is now official!

Max is proud to announce that it is now certified as an ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Standard compliant company.

Over the last three years Max has undergone a number of major changes including significant expansion of both personnel and services. This growth, which has led to perhaps inevitable growing pains, has made us reassess our internal communications, working practices, procedures and policies. The adoption and certification of the ISO 9001 quality management standard was a logical step for us to take, to cement what we have been aiming to achieve. Furthermore, the standard requires regular internal and independent external quality audit verification to ensure that we continue to comply.

What is ISO 9001?
ISO (International Standards Organisation) 9001 is a family of standards related to quality management systems. It is designed to help organisations ensure that they meet the needs of their customers. The certification of compliance with ISO 9001 recognises that the policies, practices and procedures of those companies ensure consistent quality in the services and products provided to clients.

What will this mean to our clients?
ISO certified processes, which are understood and applied by all our staff, will reduce the risk of production problems and so help to ensure that the services we provide will not only maintain the high standard that we have achieved to date, but will also ensure that our services can only improve over the longer term.

 

The Brooke Heritage Trust - Sarawak Photographic Album

The modern history of Sarawak, a small Malaysian state on the island of Borneo could have been dreamt up by a very imaginative script writer from Hollywood; in particular a scriptwriter that wrote exotic adventure movies!

James, Rajah of Sarawak

Rajah Muda Hashim  

This modern history began in 1839 when James Brooke arrived in Sarawak. Brooke was born in 1803 in India and was an army officer of the British East India Company. Upon his father’s death, James used his inheritance to purchase a schooner, the Royalist, and sailed for Sarawak. There he met with Rajah Muda Hashim, who was governing the region on behalf of his nephew, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II of Brunei. In 1840, Rajah Muda Hashim requested Brooke’s help to defeat a Dayak revolt in Kuching, promising in return the sovereignty of Sarawak. With his powerful cannons and superior military tactics, Brooke was able to quell the rebellion. In 1841 in reward for his success Brooke was appointed the first White Rajah of Sarawak in exchange for a small annual payment to the Sultan of Brunei. As the newly-appointed Rajah, Brooke took charge of what amounted to 3,000 square miles of swamp, jungle and river, much of it populated by the Dayaks. Brooke ruled Sarawak until his death in 1868.

Before his death in 1868 he nominated as heir his nephew Charles Johnson (his sister’s son) a former sailor who changed his surname to Brooke upon becoming Rajah. Charles despite been a very eccentric man at home, was to become a much-loved ruler. Charles extended the boundaries of the land under his control into the interior until it was the size of England, abolished slavery and built road, waterworks and even a railway. Apparently he even encouraged his British officers to take native women as lovers.

Charles was the ruler of Sarawak for fifty years and was succeeded by his son Charles Vyner in 1917.  During the reign of Charles Vyner Brooke Sarawak’s economy continued to prosper as rubber and oil production boomed. The rise in the economy enabled Charles Vyner to modernize the public service and other institutions. Brooke’s government was popular with the people and he continued to keep Christian missionaries out and foster most local traditions with the exception of head-hunting

In the 1940’s it became apparent that the Japanese Empire had ambition on the region. Sir Charles Vyner evacuated himself and family to Australia and this was just as well, because on December 25th, 1941 the Japanese invaded. The Rajah remained in exile in Sydney for the duration of the war. Eventually Australian troops liberated Sarawak in September of 1945 and Sir Charles Vyner returned to Kuching in April 1946. Unfortunately his tenure as Rajah was near to the end, and he ceded Sarawak to Britain as a crown colony in July 1941. This was strenuously rejected by the people of Sarawak through their native representatives on the Council Negri, and by the heir apparent Rajah Muda Anthony Brooke, who continued to fight for Independence against British Annexation up until 1951, when he finally withdrew.

Charles Vyner and his family returned to England with their three daughters to reside in London. Here Sir Charles Vyner died in 1963. He was buried with the other Rajahs of Sarawak at Sheepstor churchyard.  Rajah Muda Anthony died in 2011 and is buried beside the Rajahs at Sheepstor.
Sarawak was officially granted independence on 22 July 1963, and joined with Malaya, Sabah, and Singapore, in the federation of Malaysia 

The Brooke Heritage Trust is dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of Sarawak and was founded by the Brooke family. The Trust is a non-profit charitable trust dedicated to the heritage of Sarawak. The Trust maintains a large collection of documents, images and artefacts relating to the history of Sarawak and makes this collection publicly available at the Pustaka Negeri State Library in Kuching, Sarawak.
Max Communications was commissioned to digitise a photographic album of the country and people of Sarawak on behalf of the trust. This photographic album was donated to the Trust by the grandson of Sir Percy Cunynghame, Resident of the 1st Division Sarawak . The photographs within this album were taken by Charles Hose a keen photographer and district officer in Sarawak. Charles Hose distinguished himself as a geographer, anthropologist and collector of natural history specimens. His numerous journeys in the Baram District, brought him into contact with many interior tribes, who, through his influence, came under Sarawak control and made peace with Sarawak tribes.

 

The photographs within the album have been beautifully composed and are printed using platinum photographic paper which is the most durable of all photographic processes and are neatly captioned using letterpress pasted beneath the prints. The first 16 plates of the album show scenes in and around Kutching, the remainder of the album is devoted to studies of Dayak life and culture, with portraits, architectural views and studies of local life including a collection of shrunken heads!

Max produced a PDF representation of the book and also individual high resolution TIF and JPEG’s files of each picture within the album.
We are delighted to have digitised such an interesting photographic album.

For further information about the collections of the Brooke Heritage Trust contact Jason Brooke secretary@brooketrust.org

A number of you will have noticed that in the last 12 months Max Communications have had a face lift - not only are we now referred to as just 'Max' but all our stationery and website have been revamped. 

This new identity also got noticed on the creative website It's Nice That*. Daniel Chehade the designer of our rebranding was featured during an October article and his work on the Max identity was voted in the top 100 articles of the 2012.

It's nice to be noticed & thank you Daniel! 

Top 100 2012 article

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/review-of-the-year-top-100-70-61  

Full article

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/daniel-chehade

Daniel is highly talented and a pleasure to work with. If you need something designed get in touch - daniel@chehade.co.uk