Italian Museum goes digital with ElarScan A2-600R

The Regional Museum of Natural Sciences in Turin recently updated its technology by acquiring the ElarScan A2-600R scanner to digitalize its unique collections.

Fabrizio Longo, curator of the botanical department of the museum, stressed that one of the key tasks of the institution is to preserve and make scientific knowledge accessible to a wide audience. According to Longo, the museum has decided to purchase a scanner to digitize the collection of herbariums, as well as antique books. He noted that the museum’s collections mainly consist of sheets with dried plants, and for their careful digitization it is important to reduce physical interaction with materials to a minimum. The ElarScan A2-600R contactless digitization mode fully meets these challenges.

Longo expressed satisfaction with the choice of the scanner, noting that after mastering the device, they discovered its versatility and the possibility of using it for other tasks. The scanner was installed in the museum’s library, where, in addition to herbariums, old editions and articles are now being digitized.

The museum houses a collection of antique books by Marquis Spinola, which includes more than 6,000 titles printed from 1500 to 1850. Longo emphasized that they strive to make these books available on public platforms in digital format to meet the demands of specialists and researchers.

«After acquiring the scanner, we will be able to digitalize excerpts or entire books in much higher quality,» Longo said, adding that this will simplify the process of meeting the demands of scientists interested in specific materials. The ElarScan A2-600R scanner is ideal for working with museum collections due to its format and additional features such as optical zoom and automatic text recognition (OCR).

Thus, the acquisition of the ElarScan A2-600R scanner opens up new horizons for digitalization and preservation of the unique collections of the Regional Museum of Natural Sciences in Turin, which will make them accessible to a wide audience and researchers.