Illinois Digitization Services

Bookplate belonging to Sadie E. Onderdonk depicting a woman setting the hand on a large alarm clock under the phrase "TOUT PASSE."

Daylight Savings ended for much of the US over the weekend. Did you remember to change your clocks?

Find this bookplate from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social in the Digital Special Collections: go.library.illinois.edu/OnderdonkPlate

PS: If you're curious about the actual use of our "bonnets," they help to minimize reflections and excess light. We have affectionately named our cameras "Ofleft" and "Ofright."

A dual capture digitization system inside a black tent with a light facing forward. The two cameras have black paper bonnets and are pointed downward toward a book.

Our dual capture digitization system might be dressed for The Handmaid's Tale, but we celebrate #BannedBooksWeek every week by increasing access to texts through digitization.

Manuscript cookbook compiled by a culinary student in Puebla, Mexico Likely published in the 1920s.

The cookbook also includes recipes from other cuisines, showcasing the rich interplay of food and culture.

Find the cookbook held by the University of Illinois Rare Book & Manuscript Library in the Digital Special Collections: go.library.illinois.edu/MariaLuisaSa...

Title page from the school notebook used for the cookbook of Maria Luisa Sanchez. The school name is Escuela de Pequeñas Industrias del Estado Puebla, the class is Cocina, and the student name is Maria Luisa Sanchez.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with the recipes of Maria Luisa Sanchez, a student of the Escuela de pequeñas industrias del estado Puebla in the 1920s. Her handwritten cookbook contains classics like "Adobo de Pollo" and "Budín de Elote."

Front cover of Das erste Buch für Kinder featuring a red and orange marbled pattern

Pepperoni pizza, anyone?

We're not quite sure why, but this week's #MarbledMonday is making us feel a bit hungry!

Whet your appetite for knowledge with Das erste Buch für Kinder, die gern bald lesen lernen wollen from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social: go.library.illinois.edu/Marbled1810

Abcedarium Anglico-Latinum ; protyrunculis Richardo Huloeto exscriptore The items in the Digital Collections of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library contain materials which represent or depict sensitive topics or were written from perspectives using…

The Abcedarium was one of the first English-Latin dictionaries to use English as the headwords. It also marked the first publication of hundreds of English words or meanings.

Find the full volume in the Digital Special Collections: go.library.illinois.edu/abcedarium

Title page of Abcedarium Anglico-Latinum

Happy first day of classes, Illini!

Get back to basics with this 1552 Abcedarium Anglico-Latinum ; protyrunculis Richardo Huloeto exscriptore from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social

Digitizing with FADGI - A Quality Endeavor · Digitization Services · University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library In 2022, Digitization Services (DS), which serves the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library in Preservation Services received a major equipment upgrade. This included cameras on two…

Our current threshold is 85% 4-star compliance!
Learn more about our use of FADGI: go.library.illinois.edu/FADGIProcess

One of the things we look for is compliance with the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI), which sets standards for things such as variation in white balance, tone scale, and spatial frequency resolution, and rates output on a scale from 1 to 4.

Spatial Frequency Response (SFR) Curve Graphs, the results here of a happy target image illustrated by the smooth data line reaching FADGI 4-star image goal posts.

All caught up on your summer reading and looking for something different? Look no further than our Exhibits page!

This image comes from a deep dive into our quality control metrics that help ensure our images are faithful representations of the physical objects from various special collections.

Blue, red, and white marbled paper with brown discoloration, possibly from heat, surrounding a hole in the right side of the paper.

July is Read an Almanac Month, and appropriately for today's weather, the marbled endpaper from this @illinoisrbml.bsky.social one looks like it has been feeling the heat!

Alla Nina lontana : almanacco per l'anno bisestile 1824: go.library.illinois.edu/AllaNina

#MarbledMonday

Map of Canadian Pacific Railway and Connections. The left side of the map is on a white background and has more saturated colors while the left side is on a black background and is more muted.

Spot the Difference: Map Edition!

Each half of this map from @illinoismaps.bsky.social was photographed with the same lighting and camera settings. The difference? The background! While we usually use black for contrast, some translucent materials require white. Which one would you choose?

Handwritten recipe for Helado de Coco in green ink on ruled paper. Ingredients include Leche, Crema, Cocos frescos, Heuvos, Hielo, Sal, and Azucar granulada.

Are you feeling the heat? Cool off with this recipe for Helado de Coco!

This recently digitized cookbook from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social was compiled by Maria Luisa Sanchez in the 1920s. Find this recipe and more: go.library.illinois.edu/MariaLuisaSa...

Newspaper clipping from the Black Scrapbook with the headline "In Person: Chicago's Poet Laureate." A portrait of Brooks is in the center of the clipping.

Gwendolyn Brooks was born #OnThisDay in 1917. We're celebrating by looking back at her Black Scrapbook, part of the Gwendolyn Brooks Digital Collection from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social

Learn more about how we digitized it: go.library.illinois.edu/DigitizingBr...

Video description: A series of images of staples in the center of a pamphlet with a color target at the top of the frame. The visibility of the staple differs based on the polarization of the lens filter.

We showed our experiment with cross-polarization the other week, and now here is the final result! Glossy paper and staples can often result in specular highlights that "blow out" the image, but we were able to account for them through cross-polarization.

Cover image for video on creating facsimiles reading "Facsimile File Preparation: How to! University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Digitization Services, 2025." Images of the Main Library, Funk ACES, and Grainger Library line the left side of the image.

Close out Preservation Week by checking out our new video with Senior Digital Imaging Specialist Rachael Johns on creating facsimiles of special collections material and how to edit files for perfect printing: go.library.illinois.edu/FacsimileFil...

La Regle Saint Benoit Ms. codex.

Find La Regle Saint Benoit from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social in the Digital Special Collections: go.library.illinois.edu/GoldLeaf

Detail image of an illuminated manuscript showing gold leaf highlights in the decorated letter and dragon.

Detail image of an illuminated manuscript showing gold leaf highlights in the decorated letter.

Detail image of an illuminated manuscript showing no gold leaf highlights.

Detail image of an illuminated manuscript showing gold leaf highlights in the decorated letter and dragon.

To continue the Preservation Week fun, take a look at some images from our recent experiment with gold leaf. An axial light source positioned in different ways with different power levels changes how the gold leaf pops and draws the eye in different directions. Which image would you choose?

Hallway with exhibit cases and signage for the 90 Years of Preservation Exhibit. The Digitization Services case is in the foreground, with a person browsing a different case in the background.

The Digitization Services case, showing a facsimile of a rare book in a cradle, with a bone folder at the top right corner to hold the page flat and a color target to the right of the book. An air cannon, microfiber cloth, and medium format negative are also in the case, along with illustrations of FADGI standards, the transmissive digitization process, a view of a digitized color negative in the Digital Library, and watermark digitization.

We just had to take one last look at the 90 Years of Preservation exhibit for Preservation Week! Our case highlighted some of the tools and techniques we use to digitize special collections materials.

Thanks to all the people that made the exhibit possible, and to all who stopped by!

Chirologia, or, The naturall language of the hand Wing (2nd ed.), B5467

Bulwer also viewed sign language as a natural pathway to universal communication.

View the complete work, held by @illinoisrbml.bsky.social, in the Digital Special Collections: go.library.illinois.edu/Chirologia

Illustrated guide from Chirlogia showing the meaning of different hand gestures. The page is divided into 24 equal squares, each noted with a letter in the upper left corner. Each square contains a hand(s) in a particular pose and is accompanied by a caption in Latin.

April is National Deaf History Month. In 1644, John Bulwer attempted to record the vocabulary contained in hand gestures through his Chirologia, or the Naturall Language of the Hand. Though the volume is aimed toward orators for use in rhetoric, Bulwer would later advocate for d/Deaf education.

Girls by Gwendolyn Brooks, graphite drawings with poems May 17, 1937.

Find "Girls" by Gwendolyn Brooks, held by @illinoisrbml.bsky.social in the Digital Special Collections at go.library.illinois.edu/BrooksGirls

Graphite drawings of six women with short accompanying poems, entitled "Girls" and dated Saturday, April 17, 1937

It might be National Poetry Month, but we're not quite ready to give up Women's History Month! These graphite drawings and poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, created nearly ninety years ago this month, are the best of both worlds.

Library, 1925 Main Library Photo taken: March 17, 1925. National Register Building #00000413.

Find the digital surrogate of this photograph in the University Built Environment collection in the Digital Special Collections, representing a small portion of the Facilities and Services Project Drawing and Plans from the University Archives, at go.library.illinois.edu/1925Library

Black and white photograph of the front entrance of the Main Library under construction, without windows, doors, or roof

Color photograph of the front entrance of the Main Library in 2025, construction complete

"What a difference 100 years makes! #OnThisDay in 1925, the Main Library was under construction.

Meditations and disquisitions upon the Lord's prayer / by Sr. Richard Baker, Knight Head-pieces; initials; printed side notes.

View the full text in the Digital Special Collections: go.library.illinois.edu/AnneGriffin

In 1637, Griffin printed Thomas Becon's Displaying of the Popish masse, which called the sanctity of the Catholic church into question, resulting in Griffin nearly losing her printing house to censors. Griffin's business survived and was eventually passed to her daughter-in-law, Sarah Griffin.

Begin Women's History Month with the Women Printers Digital Collection from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social!

Anne Griffin, printer, and Anne Boler, bookseller, were frequent collaborators on theological works such as this 1636 Meditations and disquisitions upon the Lord's prayer.