Nature: a prototype digital archive

Abstract.

In response to a proposal to digitise the entire back-run of the journal Nature (1869–1992), a pilot project was commissioned to discover the technical, financial and content reproduction issues involved in making this prestigious science journal digitally available. The paper describes the processes undertaken, the results ascertained from these pilot processes and the techniques used. The pilot, though not complete at the time of reporting, could draw some conclusions from the progress made. They include recommendations to strip bound volumes for digitisation and that 400 dpi resolution is sufficient for greyscale and colour content. The paper also gives an innovative, fresh approach to content description from such a complex source material twinned with a developing user interface. There is, however, no satisfactory solution found yet for the large file sizes produced in PDF.