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The Samuel H. Kress Foundation has awarded a major grant of $150,000 for the three years of the first phase of the CSA Propylaea Project. Additional funds are still being sought, but the size of the Kress grant has made it possible to begin work on the project; CSA and all the participants in the work are enormously grateful to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for its generous support.
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| The Propylaea from below (© CSA, digital photograph taken in February, 2000) |
The project will involve digitizing existing drawings and photographs. In addition, a CAD model of the building will be constructed, based on those drawings and photographs. In the end, a Web site will provide access to all the information in a coordinated, inter-connected fashion so that anyone interested in the Propylaea will be able to find information about the building via the Web site. (See the last issue of the Newsletter for a more complete discussion of the nature of the undertaking.)
Although the Web site is still in its infancy, there are some photographs available now, with more on the way, at (www.)propylaea.org. Readers who have photographs of the building that they would be willing to share and that may provide added information are encouraged to contact project director Harrison Eiteljorg, II, (at CSA, Box 60, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, USA, or via e-mail to user nicke at (@) the domain csanet.org about permitting them to be scanned for archival storage and access via the Web site.
Progress on the Web site has been slowed by problems with scanning slides. CSA's initial attempts to scan slides taken of the Propylaea by CSA Director Harrison Eiteljorg, II, were not successful and demonstrated that the technology today still requires specialized and expensive equipment to obtain good scans. Scans made using an affordable slide scanner (about $1000 at retail) were inadequate. Sent to a local supplier and scanned for about $1.50 per slide, the same slides produced scans of slightly worse quality. Sent to Luna Imaging in California and scanned for about $4.00 each, the slides produced excellent results. As the technology advances, better and better results can be expected with affordable equipment, but the best results today still require specialized and expensive equipment.
For other Newsletter articles concerning the Propylaea Project or the use of electronic media in the humanities, consult the Subject index.
Next Article: CSA's New Web Site
Table of Contents for the Fall, 2000 issue of the CSA Newsletter (Vol. XIII, no. 2)
Table of Contents for all CSA Newsletter issues on the Web