Delivering historical letters in the digital age

The National Postal Museum opened in London in 1966, in the GPO headquarters. When the building was closed in the 1990s, the museum was shut down and the collections were put into storage. In 2004 The Postal Heritage Trust was established to manage the collections and the Royal Mail Archive, with the aim of creating a new museum. This goal was achieved in 2017. The aim of the Postal Museum is now to provide access to a world-class collection of objects and documents and to present the depths of communication history. With its 318 years of history, postal communication is the world’s first social network.

Since the birth of the postage stamp in 1840, the museum has held the world’s most significant collection of British philatelic material, comprising more than two miles (3.2 km) of printed and manuscript documents, more than 800 maps and 10,000 posters. The museum’s collection ranges from motor vehicles through pillar boxes and badges to bicycles. The aim is to provide access to a world-class collection of objects and documents, which form the basis of both the history of postal communication and the exhibition layout.

Image © The British Postal Museum & Archive, London

Preparing to preserve the past

Digitisation is a key tool in achieving the museum’s goals, and institutions must be flexible enough to preserve as much as possible. For this reason the museum uses two Phase One XF camera systems: one with an IQ3 80MP digital back and one with an IQ3 100MP digital back, together with a wide selection of Schneider Kreuznach and Phase One lenses. This imaging equipment was developed for preserving the past.

Image © The British Postal Museum & Archive, London

“The quality of the lenses, the true 16-bit colour depth and the Capture One ICC profile workflow are the most important reasons why we use the Phase One system; they enable us to meet, and often exceed, today’s most demanding digitisation expectations. We take photographs that contain so much data that researchers can use them in their work as well. The CMOS sensor of the IQ3 100MP digital back has revolutionised our workflow.

Precise changes in composition, sharpness and depth of field can be viewed in real time in the Capture One software’s live view. This makes a huge difference, because it lets you see exactly how the camera image will look on the screen. The integration between the Phase One cameras and the Capture One software means that I can check literally anything.” – Andrew Bruce, digitisation officer at the Postal Museum, London

Image © The British Postal Museum & Archive, London

Although most of the museum’s image capture takes place in the studio, the cameras are sometimes taken to the museum shop, the galleries or Mail Rail. Projects depend on size; for example, large maps involve multiple shots and image stitching, while in other projects up to 2,000 individual images can be taken a day. The museum also works with photogrammetry, so it can turn high-resolution images into accurate 3D forms and models that can be used for research and for printing exhibition replicas.

Image: the studio of The British Postal Museum & Archive, London

Voices from the Deep: letters long lost at sea

The Postal Museum is currently preparing for the exhibition “Voices from the Deep”. The exhibition presents a collection of letters recovered from a ship that sank on 14 February 1941. The SS Gairsoppa, a ship of the British India Steam Navigation Company, was hit by a torpedo from a German U-boat. The hull was holed and the ship sank to the seabed at a depth of 4,700 m, where it lay forgotten for more than 70 years.

The shipwreck was recently salvaged, and in the process several hundred undelivered letters were discovered that never reached their addressees. The recovered letters evoke the hopes and hardships of life in India during the Second World War. The recovered letters were restored with great care, and the process was recorded with a Phase One system, thereby documenting the condition of the sunken treasures before and after conservation.

Image courtesy of Thomas Weis

“The camera system provides the highest level of thoroughness and precision. Besides recording our collection, the images also provide a digital surrogate, which the museum can display in many forms and use in printed catalogues as well as online. In our busy cultural heritage studio, the level of support we receive from Phase One and from Phase One’s British Cultural Heritage partner is amazing. There is very high-level communication about our needs regarding the organisation of our cultural heritage work, and about the support we continuously receive.” – Andrew Bruce, digitisation officer at the Postal Museum, London

Recording the condition of the objects before and after treatment during the conservation process adds to the Museum’s collection in a unique way. The museum also works with photogrammetry, so it can turn high-resolution images into accurate 3D forms and models that can be used for research and for printing exhibition replicas. These letters are now part of the Postal Museum’s collection and form the basis of a new exhibition called “Voices from the Deep”, which opens in March 2018. More information about the Postal Museum here.

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Source of the article: https://stories.phaseone.com/delivering-historical-letters-in-the-digital-age/